LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


FROM  THE  LIBRARY 
OF  F.  VON  BOSCH  AN 


UCSB    LIBKAKY 


NAPOLEON 

From  the  Painting  by  Delaroche  in  the  Collection  of  the 
Duke  of  Portland 

This  engraving  represents  approximately  the  author's  conception  of 
Napoleon's  appearance  at  the  period  of  the  story,  i.  e.,  1809. 
It  has  been  criticized  as  "idealization";  in  reality,  Delaroche 
has  treated  his  subject  somewhat  as  Kresilas  treated  the  por- 
trait of  Pericles  in  the  famous  bust;  he  has,  in  Furtwangler's 
phrase,  not  "idealized,"  but  "universalized"  it, 

Photo  Braun. 


SGHONBRUNN 

A  NOVEL 


BY 

J.  A.   CRAMB 

("J.   A.    REVERMORT") 
AUTHOR  OF  "GERMANY  AND  ENGLAND,"  ETC. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  AND    LONDON 

Unicfcerbocfcer  press 
1918 


COPYRIGHT,  1918 

BY 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


"Cbc  Tknfcfectbocfcer  press,  flew  L'erfe 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

I. — THE  PALAZZO  ESTERTHAL  i 

II. — THE  NOON  PARADE     .....      42 

III. — NAPOLEON'S  RIDE 68 

IV. — THE  ASSASSIN 86 

V. — THE  MIND  OF  A  CITY          ....     141 

VI. — THE  MAKING  OF  A  POET     ....     164 

VII. — A  VIENNESE  SUPPER  PARTY        .         .         .192 

VIII. — NAPOLEON'S  DREAM  .         .         .         .         .217 

IX. — THE  MASKED  BALL    .         .         .         .         .281 

X. — NAPOLEON'S  ADDRESS  TO  HIS  GUARD   .         .313 

XI. — ON  THE  TRACK  OF  A  CRIME         .         .         .     33 1 

XII. — AN  EMPEROR  AND  HIS  SECRETARIES      .         .     349 

XIII. — AN  IDYLL  AT  MODLING        .         .         .         .371 

XIV. — A     VIENNESE     POET     AND     A     VIENNESE 

COMPOSER 392 

XV. — "So  STIRBT  EIN  HELD!"     ....     413 
XVI. — EPILOGUE 432 


SCHONBRUNN 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    PALAZZO    ESTERTHAL 


"TV TO,  Toe,  I  cannot  go  with  you  to  this  parade.  For 
1 N  myself,  I  do  not  care  two  straws  whether  Bonaparte 
is  a  black  or  a  white  man.  To  me,  this  demi-deity  of 
aspiring  ramrods  is  simply  a  hustler;  and,  therefore,  I 
suppose,  I  am  a  harsh  judge  of  his  enthusiasts.  All  the 
same,  I  protest  against  you  women  of  Vienna  crowding  to 
stare  at  the  humiliator  of  Germany — this  burglar  in  a 
palace  of  the  Caesars!  Austria  should  be  an  example  to 
other  nations;  Vienna  to  other  cities.  By  God,  what  will 
be  said  of  us  in  the  Tyrol,  at  Munich,  Frankfort,  Konigs- 
berg,  or  in  Berlin  itself?" 

Count  Johann  Markowitz,  a  man  of  four  and  thirty,  just 
returned  from  an  abortive  mission  to  Petersburg,  swung 
aside  from  the  Princess  Durrenstein  and  the  small  group  of 
men  and  women  whom  he  had  thus  been  addressing,  and, 
walking  to  a  window,  stood  staring  moodily  past  the 
heavily  fringed  curtains  at  a  patch  of  sunshine  on  the  lawn. 
The  higher  branches  of  a  juniper  tree  worked  on  it  a  fan- 
tastic pattern  like  ebony  inlaid  on  dull  gold,  and  farther 
off  two  gardeners  were  emptying  a  barrow  full  of  dead 


2  Schonbrunn 

leaves  upon  a  fire.  Its  smoke  rose  in  a  pillar  through  the 
windless  autumn  day. 

Toe,  Princess  Diirrenstein,  looking  very  tall  and  grace- 
ful in  a  clinging  gown  of  fine  silk  under  her  high  and 
nodding  ostrich  plumes,  came  up  to  her  former  lover  and 
said  to  him  almost  timidly: 

"What  are  we  women  to  do?  You  are  severe  on  us, 
Johann. " 

"Severe!  Look  yonder!  Look  at  our  brave  Viennese  ! 
And  it  is  hardly  ten  o'clock.  There  is  Austrian  patriotism ! ' ' 

He  pointed  to  a  strip  of  road  a  mile  away,  white  with 
heat  and  sunlight.  It  was  dotted  with  human  figures, 
some  on  foot,  some  on  horseback,  some  in  the  lumbering 
Austrian  caliche  harnessed  to  four  or  six  horses,  others  in 
hackney  coaches,  in  berlines,  in  landaus,  in  hired  waggons 
without  springs,  but  all  streaming  in  one  direction — south- 
ward towards  Schonbrunn. 

"Well,"  said  Berthold  Stahrenberg,  coming  up  behind 
them  and  laying  his  hand  on  Johann's  shoulder,  "what  is 
there  wrong  in  all  this?  It  is  Friday,  and  our  worthy 
fellow-townsmen  have  on  their  Sunday  coats,  and  their 
wives  their  embroidered  stockings.  What  should  they  do 
but  blacken  the  road  to  Schonbrunn?  Why,  it  proves 
that  we  Viennese  know  a  great  man  when  we  see  one  and 
like  to  sun  ourselves  in  his  neighbourhood — that  is  all. " 

The  irony  was  inopportune,  and  Count  Johann  shook 
off  the  white,  finely-made  hand  emerging  from  its  delicate 
lace  cuff. 

"It  proves  that  we  Germans  want  heroic  hate,  and 
therefore  want  heroic  energy;  it  proves,  too,  why  we  Aus- 
trians  are  defeated  whenever  we  make  war  against  that 
man;  and  why  Wagram  repeats  Marengo,  and  Aspern, 
Arcola.  Very  near  but  never  quite  a  victory,  and  so  from 
disaster  to  disaster  we  flounder  on." 

There  was  an  awkward  silence — the  silence  which  falls 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  3 

upon  men  and  women  who  are  compelled  unexpectedly  to 
look  at  themselves  in  an  impartial  mirror. 

The  Palazzo  Esterthal  in  which  this  scene  took  place  on 
the  morning  of  Friday,  the  I3th  of  October,  1809,  had, 
during  the  French  occupation,  become  the  rendezvous  of 
the  few  great  families  who  still  remained  in  Vienna.  Morn- 
ing by  morning  throughout  that  summer  and  autumn  they 
had  met  and  talked  amid  the  sombre  magnificence  of  its 
rooms,  or  sauntered  about  its  gardens,  or  sat  in  the  im- 
penetrable shade  of  the  two  cedars  which  guarded  the  main 
avenue. 

Berthold  Stahrenberg,  who  in  this  society  in  which  every 
man  and  woman  had  a  nickname  was  known  as  "Bolli, " 
made  a  gesture  of  comical  despair  and  went  back  to  a 
sofa,  beside  the  Countess  Prostkeiya,  whose  pet  name  Lan- 
Lan  suited  her  rich  figure  and  placidly  luxurious  features. 

"Smell  these  roses,"  Lan-Lan  said,  "and  forget  all  else. 
Each  blossom  has  its  own  texture,  its  own  odour. " 

"Like  women's  hair  and  women's  hands,"  Bolli  mur- 
mured abstractedly. 

"Indeed?  How  many  women's  hair  or  women's  hands 
have  you  tested  then?  Hein?  Tell  me." 

"One— one  only!" 

She  reddened  and  had  no  immediate  answer. 

Bolli,  though  not  yet  five  and  twenty,  threatened  by  his 
gallantries  to  eclipse  the  fame  of  Prince  Puckler  Prasler 
himself.  Lan-Lan  had  at  first  disregarded  his  assiduities, 
but  during  the  past  three  or  four  weeks  something  in  his 
voice  and  manner  had  begun  to  affect  her  troublingly. 

"But  what  would  you  have  us  women  do?"  Toe  per- 
sisted, still  standing  beside  Count  Johann.  Her  soft  yet 
vibrant  Polish  accent  was  very  marked  against  his  Austrian 
baritone.  "You  do  not  wish  us  to  enroll  ourselves  into  a 
fighting  corps  and  make  Nusschen  our  captain?" 

Nusschen,  Bolli's  youngest  sister,  a  girl  of  seventeen, 


4  Schonbrunn 

with  a  swinging  careless  gait,  had  at  that  moment  come 
forward  from  a  group  in  another  part  of  the  hall.  She  was 
a  Stahrenberg  every  inch,  one  of  the  race  which  had  given 
to  Austria  not  only  the  hero  of  the  siege  of  Vienna  by  the 
Turks,  but  a  series  of  crusaders,  warriors,  and  statesmen. 

"I  should  just  love  that!  Forward!  On,  ye  brave! 
O  Dona  Burida,  why  have  I  not  your  chances!" 

To  Nusschen's  girl's  enthusiasm  the  exploits  of  the  Maid 
of  Saragossa  against  Napoleon's  marshals,  which  were  now 
reaching  Vienna,  read  like  those  of  a  nineteenth-century 
Joan  Dare. 

"That  is  not  for  the  women  of  Vienna,"  Count  Johann 
answered.  "Theirs  is  a  nobler  part — to  teach  our  con- 
querors how  to  waltz.  After  the  parade  this  morning  it  is 
the  masked  ball  to-night,  is  it  not?" 

This  was  addressed  in  a  veiled  but  savage  sarcasm  to  Toe. 
Nusschen  looked  from  the  one  to  the  other  in  perplexity. 

But  at  this  point  Bolli's  satellite,  Rudolf  Kessling,  grand- 
son of  that  Wilhelm  Kessling,  the  grain  merchant  of  Prague, 
whom  for  his  great  wealth  and  public  spirit  Maria  Theresa 
had  enrolled  in  the  reluctant  ranks  of  the  Austrian  nobility, 
took  up  the  part  that  Bolli  had  dropped  and  attempted 
to  answer  Count  Johann.  He  dressed  expensively  and 
affected  to  be  a  wit,  but  his  dress  was  often  in  bad  taste 
and  his  wit  was  always  German.  As  Bolli  himself  ad- 
mitted semi-apologetically,  "You  can  never  be  sure  what 
Kezy  is  going  to  say  or  what  Kezy  is  going  to  wear.  But 
what  chance  has  he?" 

"The  French  are  in  a  manner  our  guests, "  Kessling  now 
declared  with  false  emphasis.  "Why  should  we  not  teach 
them  how  to  waltz — the  few  at  least  whom  a  fellow  can 
invite  to  the  Mehlmarkt. " 

"Our  guests!" 

Johann's  exclamation  was  as  full,  of  hate  as  of  contempt. 
At  Petersburg  and  at  Warsaw  his  manners  as  an  envoy 


i  he  Palazzo  Esterthal  5 

had  been  censured  as  stiff,  but  never  as  incorrect  or  dis- 
courteous; yet,  as  Cobenzl  had  said  of  him  to  Metternich, 
he  was  a  man  better  fitted  to  meditate  under  an  old  pear 
tree  on  the  Markowitz  estates  than  to  fill  subordinate 
positions  in  diplomacy.  "In  a  foremost  position,"  Co- 
benzl had  added,  "you  might  get  much  out  of  him." 

Irritated  by  Johann's  bearing,  who  in  making  this  retort 
had  not  even  looked  at  him,  Kessling  now  took  up  the 
reference  to  Prussia. 

"Vienna  should  be  an  example  to  Berlin,  you  say?  What 
has  Prussia  done  since  Jena  except  truckle  to  Bonaparte? 
And  you  know  as  well  as  the  rest  of  us  what  price  at  Tilsit 
the  lovely  Louisa  was  willing  to  pay  for  Magdeburg.  She 
offered  the  Corsican  a  rose:  the  rose  was  her  royal  self!" 

Johann,  again  without  looking  at  Kessling,  said  con- 
temptuously : 

"It  is  a  calumny,  that  Magdeburg  story — Bonaparte's  or 
another's." 

Nevertheless,  this  was  the  version  of  it  that  was  accepted 
in  Vienna,  and  Johann  knew  it.  A  Habsburg,  the  Grand- 
duchess  of  Tuscany,  Marie  Leopolda,  had  sealed  it  with 
her  approval. 

"After  all,"  Bolli  said,  intervening,  "this  Bonaparte 
makes  things  hum.  We  were  yawning  ourselves  to  death 
when  here  comes  this  son  of  a  Corsican  attorney  and  squats 
himself  down  on  the  throne  of  the  oldest  dynasty  in  Europe. 
And  keeps  there!  What?  Is  not  that  something?  He  is 
barely  forty,  yet  year  in,  year  out,  these  last  fifteen,  he 
has  beaten  a  Romanoff  or  a  Hohenzollern,  a  Brunswick, 
a  Bourbon  or  a  Habsburg,  in  battle  after  battle.  And  if 
Germany  or  Europe  will  not  fight  him  it  must  serve  him." 

"There  I  am  with  you!"  Johann  said  with  sudden 
energy.  "If  Germany  will  not  fight  him  she  must  serve 
him;  by  God,  and  Europe  also!  Yes,  a  world  only  fit  for 
Bonaparte  should  have  for  its  tyrant  a  Bonaparte. " 


6  Schonbrunn 

Bolli,  Kessling,  and  an  official  named  Freihoff  leaned 
forward  simultaneously  to  answer. 

But  Lan-Lan  anticipated  all  three. 

"Come  here,  Johann,  and  talk  to  Toe  and  me.  What  is 
the  matter  with  you?  Amongst  Russian  bears  does  one 
grow  like  a  bear?"  she  said,  looking  up  into  his  darkening 
features.  "Now  listen  to  me.  I  am  going  to  this  parade, 
not  to  do  homage  to  the  French  Emperor,  but  simply 
because  I  am  bored  indoors,  and  because  I  feel  well,  and 
because  the  morning  is  fine  and  the  autumn  woods  glorious. 
As  for  Bonaparte,  I  go  to  see  him  exactly  as  I  would  go  to 
see  the  automatic  chess-player:  each  is  a  curiosity. " 

She  referred  to  the  invention  of  Metzel,  then  notorious — 
a  figure  in  wood  dressed  like  a  Turk  which  sat  before  a 
chess-board  and  challenged  and  invariably  defeated  all  who 
cared  to  play. 

"Toe  feels  just  the  same,"  Lan-Lan  went  on,  "so  does 
Amalie,  so  does  Nusschen.  And, "  she  concluded  with 
feminine  illogicalness,  "we  are  going  to  the  masked  ball 
to-night  and  therefore  cannot  shirk  the  parade  this  morn- 
ing. Why  do  you  look  at  me  like  that?" 

"To  see  how  one  folly  breeds  another,"  was  the  answer 
on  Count  Johann's  lips;  but  he  masked  it  under  an  ironic 
smile  and  merely  bowed  ceremoniously. 

"The  automatic  chess-player?  Your  Serenity  has  said 
the  word.  You  will  permit  me  to  withdraw  from  this 
exalted  company?  I  have  to  see  Count  Andreossy  at 
eleven. " 

Andreossy,  Napoleon's  ambassador,  first  to  England, 
then  to  Austria,  was  now  governor  of  the  captured  city. 
Towards  the  Viennese  public,  he  affected  an  overbearing 
and  harsh  manner ;  but  he  was  the  secret  friend  and  adviser 
of  many  of  the  great  families  and  took  a  malicious  if  dis- 
sembled pleasure  in  their  coarsest  as  well  as  in  their  most 
pungent  and  refined  caricatures  of  Napoleon.  Sprung 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  7 

from  the  smaller  nobility  of  Languedoc,  Andre'ossy  found 
in  Vienna  a  life  and  a  society  which  appealed  at  once  to  his 
pleasure-loving  southern  temper  and  to  the  snobbism  always 
latent  in  men  of  his  rank. 

II 

Count  Johann  had  indeed  an  appointment  with  Andre'- 
ossy, but  this  morning  also  he  wished  to  get  away  from  the 
habitue's  of  the  Palazzo  Esterthal.  Behind  Bolli's  argument 
he  heard,  or  seemed  to  hear,  thousands,  millions  of  voices  in 
the  hubbub  of  a  staccato  discordant  chorus  proclaiming, 
"Great  is  Napoleon,  great,  great,  great!  He  has  done 
something.  He  has  made  things  hum. "  Johann's  own 
deep  moral  nature  was  outraged  by  this  admiration  for 
success,  the  success,  he  believed,  of  a  man  essentially 
ordinary,  secured,  not  by  genius,  but  by  craft,  rough 
soldiership  and  bloody  violence;  for  in  another  sense  than 
that  of  the  priests  and  priest-ridden  societies,  he  thought 
of  Napoleon  as  "Antichrist" — the  actual  living  promulga- 
tor  of  a  new  ethic,  antagonistic  in  every  point  to  that  of 
Galilee. 

"Marat  too  did  something,"  he  said  savagely,  "so  did 
St.  Just  and  Robespierre,  and  so  did  Ivan  the  Terrible  and 
the  Hospidar  Vlad  Dracul.  And  they  were  in  their  nature 
and  in  their  right.  If  we  would  not  have  demi-devils  make 
things  hum,  we  must  make  things  hum  ourselves.  But, 
being  Germans,  this  we  shall  never  do,  never!" 

On  the  other  hand  Johann  reasoned,  nearly  every  man  of 
Bolli's  set,  including  Kessling,  had  gone  to  the  front.  Two 
had  fallen  at  Ratisbon ;  at  Aspern  and  at  Wagram  five  had 
been  wounded.  Again,  though  Bolli's  debts  were  heavy 
and  though  he  was  reckless  at  the  gaming-table  as  on  the 
duelling-ground,  had  he  not  out  of  his  own  purse  helped  to 
maintain  Count  Purgstall's  regiment,  seven  hundred  strong, 
of  whom  not  more  than  fifty  had  ever  seen  their  Styrian 


8  Schonbrunn 

fields  again?  Finally,  unlike  his  greatest  friend,  the  poet 
Heinrich  von  Rentzdorf,  unlike  Johann  himself,  Bolli  had 
in  him  a  touch  of  authentic  military  talent.  In  February 
he  had  communicated  his  own  plan  of  campaign  to  the  War 
Office.  Part  of  it  coincided  with  the  design  for  a  march  upon 
Paris;  but  it  had  in  it  an  important  modification  of  that 
design,  characterized  by  a  judge  in  these  matters  as  "une 
idee  vraiment  Napoleonienne. "  The  Archduke  had  thrown 
the  paper  on  the  fire  and  by  that  act,  it  was  said  amongst 
Bolli's  following,  he  had  burned  the  glory  of  Austria.  But 
Bolli  knew  better  muttering  to  himself  "  Thank  God  "  each 
time  he  thought  of  the  Archduke's  action. 

As  Johann  turned  to  leave  the  room  Toe  darted  to  his 
side  and  taking  his  arm  said  in  Polish,  "You  are  not  going? 
You  cannot  go.  Why  are  you  putting  this  affront  on  me? " 

She  spoke  in  a  low  guttural  voice.  Her  anger  and  her 
pain  added  to  the  resplendence  of  her  eyes. 

"What  have  I  done?"  she  pleaded. 

"Nothing,  Toe,  nothing.  I  am  not  myself  to-day. 
What  have  you  to  do  this  afternoon?" 

"I  wish  to  speak  to  you  now — now,"  she  whispered. 
"I  must  speak  with  you." 

He  wavered,  gnawing  his  underlip. 

"It  is  impossible,"  he  said  at  length.  "This  business 
with  Andr^ossy  is  imperative.  It  is  about  the  guard  for 
this  accursed  ball  amongst  other  things." 

"Ah,  here  is  Meisner, "  Toe  exclaimed,  seizing  this 
excuse  to  detain  him. 

Etienne  Meisner,  the  old  Count  Esterthal's  physician, 
approached,  bowing  to  the  princess.  He  was  a  shortish 
square-built  man  of  fifty,  with  pale  hair,  light  blue  eyes, 
cleanliness,  health,  an  almost  Spartan  simplicity  in  dress 
and  manners.  He  was  a  Swiss,  but  had  been  trained  in 
Paris  and  before  settling  in  Vienna  had  fought  in  the  Re- 
volution wars. 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  9 

"Good-morning,  doctor,"  Toe  said.  "How  is  the  pad- 
rino?  He  can  go  with  us  to  the  parade?" 

"  Padrino  "  was  the  pet  name  of  the  old  count. 

Johann,  returning  the  doctor's  bow  coldly,  stood  watch- 
ing Toe's  face,  her  quick  gestures  and  her  smiles.  Her 
teeth  were  irregular,  as  though  she  had  been  wilful  in  her 
childhood;  but  her  smile,  the  velvet  smoothness  of  her 
brow,  the  glow  in  her  dark  eyes,  made  of  this  defect  a 
charm. 

The  princess's  familiarity  with  the  doctor  grated  on 
Count  Johann ;  but  it  was  Toe's  way.  She  seemed  to 
forget  her  rank  with  just  those  men  and  women  in  whose 
society  Count  Johann  would  most  have  wished  her  to 
remember  her  rank. 

"Yes, "  he  muttered,  "  I  love  her,  but  I  shall  never  under- 
stand her. " 

He  never  had  understood  her  he  argued  moodily ;  not 
when  at  eighteen,  just  after  her  father's  death  in  battle, 
she  had  first  come  to  Vienna,  a  vision  of  sorrow,  seduc- 
tion and  romance;  not  when,  in  answer  to  his  passionate 
adoration,  she  had  affianced  herself  to  him ;  not  when,  at  the 
end  of  four  months  of  the  strangest  happiness,  she  had 
broken  her  troth  and,  as  the  bride  of  Prince  Durrenstein, 
had  written  to  him  less  than  a  week  after  her  marriage, 
"Everything  will  be  the  same  between  us,  everything! 
Dearest,  my  dearest,  how  I  love  you  now!  And  in  five 
weeks  from  Tuesday  next  I  shall  see  you  again!  You  will 
still  be  in  Vienna?  You  will  wait  for  me?" 

He  had  not  waited  twenty-four  hours.  This  incredible 
perversity,  outraging  every  moral  instinct,  aggravated  the 
wound  in  his  heart.  The  thunderous  march  of  the  French 
legions  from  Boulogne  had  given  him  distraction,  and  in 
the  campaign  of  1805,  and  immediately  afterwards  as  a 
volunteer  with  the  Russians,  he  had  sought  and  found  a 
temporary  oblivion.  She  had  written  to  him  repeatedly; 


io  Schonbrunn 

marriage,  she  protested,  had  merely  shown  her  the  power 
and  tenacity  of  her  love  for  him.  "I  am  wretched,  most 
wretched. "  Then,  stung  by  his  silence  or  furious  upbraid  - 
ings,  she  had  ceased  to  write. 

Suddenly,  a  year  and  a  half  ago,  in  the  spring  of  1808, 
a  new  and  disturbing  problem  had  confronted  him — the 
death  of  Prince  Durrenstein  at  Ostrolenka  during  the 
plague  that  the  war  had  left. 

Meanwhile  riches  had  come  to  Johann  himself.  An 
eccentric  uncle,  a  fanatical  Josephinist,  attracted  by  his 
character  and  repelled  by  the  pedantry  of  Johann's  elder 
brother,  had  made  him  master  of  a  wide  tract  of  mining 
country  in  Styria.  But  everything  had  come  too  late:  to 
Toe,  her  knowledge  of  herself;  to  him,  his  riches  and  his 
lands.  Yet  his  infatuation  was  cureless. 

"At  her  worst,"  he  thought  now,  surveying  her  nervous 
perverse  grace,  "she  is  the  best  thing  on  earth  to  me.  The 
power  to  wish  for  something  strongly  enough  to  will  death 
rather  than  lose  it — she  wakens  in  me  that  power.  I 
should  be  worse  than  a  fool  to  let  her  go. " 

Nevertheless,  he  had  undertaken  the  mission  to  Peters- 
burg in  order  to  be  away  from  her,  to  have  the  leisure  to 
think  freely,  untroubled  by  the  hypnotism  of  her  presence. 

A  quick  stir  and  greetings  and  exclamations  at  the  foot 
of  the  north  staircase  made  everyone  look  in  that  direction. 

It  was  the  old  Count  Esterthal,  followed  by  Patzsch,  his 
body-servant,  carrying  plaids  and  a  rug. 

Count  Esterthal  was  at  this  period  a  man  of  seventy- 
two;  he  stooped,  but  his  features  and  bearing  had  an 
alert  and  vigorous  expression.  His  thin  pale  hooked  nose 
emerged  between  two  vivid  German  steel-blue  eyes;  his 
lips  were  tightly  closed,  but  in  the  company  of  children  or 
the  young  a  smile  played  about  them  willingly. 

No  man  in  Austria  had  felt  his  country's  humiliation 
more  poignantly.  To  the  Habsburgs  he  had  in  his  youth 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  11 

devoted  something  of  that  chivalrous  loyalty  which  the 
Stuarts  extorted  from  the  Cavaliers.  The  triumphs  of 
the  French  Revolutionists  were  to  Count  Esterthal  what 
the  triumph  of  a  slave-revolt  might  have  been  to  a  Sulla  or 
an  Appius  Claudius.  He  saw  in  Bonaparte  simply  the  ener- 
getic leader  of  gangs  of  serfs,  the  brigand  chief  of  a  hideous 
brood  which  had  burst  from  the  cellars  and  ergastula  in 
whose  fetid  darkness  they  were  meant  by  nature  to  waste 
and  pine  in  chains. 

The  second  occupation  of  Vienna  by  Napoleon  had 
found  the  old  Count  withdrawn  from  politics  as  from  the 
army,  tormented  by  illness,  impatience  and  life-disgust; 
and  a  prisoner  in  his  room;  and  though  known  to  be  an 
intransigeant,  he  had  applied  to  Andreossy  to  intercede 
with  the  "brigand"  that  he  might  be  permitted  to  remain 
in  the  city,  and  that  the  house  in  which  Esterthal  had  suc- 
ceeded Esterthal  for  two  hundred  years — soldiers,  council- 
lors, churchmen,  ardent  supporters  of  Leopold  I.  or  the 
open  antagonists  of  Joseph  II. — might  be  free  from  the 
pollution  of  the  murderers  of  Marie  Antoinette  as  its  un- 
invited guests. 

Andreossy  had  made  the  intercession  in  person;  and, 
exaggerating  the  old  Count's  illness,  he  had  excited  Napo- 
leon's magnanimity. 

"Esterthal?  Esterthal?"  Bonaparte  had  cried.  "Tiens, 
I  remember  that  name. "  And  a  misty  morning  on  the  banks 
of  the  Pieve  had  risen  before  his  memory.  "He  was  at 
Rivoli,  a  general  of  division,  was  he  not?  And  at  the 
Tagliamento?  I  remember.  C'est  un  brave,"  he  had 
concluded  sententiously,  and,  pleased  at  this  reminiscence 
of  his  first  dazzling  victories,  he  had,  after  two  or  three 
pointed  questions,  granted  the  petition.  A  special  courier, 
however,  had  overtaken  Andreossy  on  his  way  back  to  the 
city,  bearing  the  stipulation  that  Count  Ferdinand  Ester- 
thai,  one  of  the  associates  of  the  Archduke  Maximilian, 


12  Schonbrunn 

"the  firebrand  of  Vienna,"  was  to  give  his  parole  neither 
to  remain  in  Vienna  nor  visit  his  father's  house  until  the 
peace  was  signed. 

Bonaparte's  memory  had  served  him  right.  In  1797 
Count  Esterthal,  then  a  "Field-marshal  lieutenant,"  or 
major-general  commanding  a  division,  had  negotiated  the 
preliminaries  of  Leoben. 

On  the  old  Count's  entrance  Johann  turned  at  once  to 
Toe. 

"I  shall  see  you  this  afternoon,  then?"  he  enquired, 
taking  her  hand  as  in  farewell. 

"Yes, "  she  said  faintly;  "if  you  must  go  now.  Come  at 
three. " 

He  made  his  way  to  Count  Esterthal,  seated  in  the  shadow 
of  the  huge  staircase  and  surrounded  by  a  small  crowd  of 
acquaintances  or  sycophants.  Count  Esterthal  drew  him 
at  once  into  the  embrasure  of  the  window. 

"Well?"  he  said  with  a  keen  glance  into  the  younger 
man's  face. 

"Nothing,"  the  latter  answered  with  a  guarded  look 
around.  "Liechtenstein  and  Bubna  have  an  interview 
this  morning.  I  am  going  to  headquarters  now.  I  fear 
the  worst. " 

"  What  will  be,  will  be.     Che  sar&  sara. " 

The  two  stood  silent  for  some  seconds,  then  the  old  man 
walked  with  him  to  the  door. 

"We  can  talk  better  outside." 

They  had  scarcely  gone  when  down  the  heavily  carved 
staircase  a  woman's  figure  appeared. 

Her  plain  dress  amid  the  brilliant  colouring  of  the  guests, 
her  bare  head  amid  the  hats,  toques  and  ostrich  plumes, 
the  nobility  and  ease  of  her  walk  as  she  came  forward,  ex- 
changing handshakes  in  the  English  fashion  with  the  guests, 
astonished  and  charmed  the  most  careless  observer. 

It  was  Amalie  von  Esterthal,   wife  of  the  Ferdinand 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  13 

Albrecht  whom  Bonaparte  had  so  pointedly  excluded  from 
Vienna  and  from  his  father's  house.  She  seemed  about  the 
same  age  as  Toe  and  Lan-Lan.  Her  walk,  the  symmetries  of 
her  figure,  drew  every  eye  to  the  face,  almost  in  fear  lest 
some  feature  less  enchanting  than  that  form  should  dis- 
appoint the  sight;  and  if  the  usual  exclamations,  "How 
classic!  How  Greek!"  were  heard  around  her,  it  was 
because  in  a  sophisticated  society  this  had  become  the 
stereotyped  phrase  for  great  and  arresting  beauty.  Her 
figure  was  certainly  Greek  in  its  proportions  and  her  bear- 
ing and  walk  had  great  freedom — in  a  word,  that  poise  or 
balance  which  sculptors  at  that  period  were  beginning  to 
admire  from  castes  and  drawings  of  the  Parthenon. 

"You  enter  like  some  beautiful  theme  in  a  symphony," 
Toe  murmured,  taking  her  towards  the  south  window  where 
she  had  stood  with  Johann.  "Your  eyes  are  full  of  happy 
thoughts.  You  have  heard  from  Rentzdorf?  The  sun- 
light on  your  mouth  betrays  you.  It  is  a  rose  of  paradise. " 

Amalie  looked  at  the  flushed  features  and  sparkling  eyes. 

"Dearest  Toe,  what  has  excited  you?  Do  I  come  too 
soon  or  too  late?  I  thought  Johann  was  here?" 

She  referred  to  the  immediate  prospect  of  a  betrothal  of 
the  Princess  and  Count  Johann  Markowitz. 

"I  cannot  explain  to  you  here.  Where  can  we  talk?  I 
am  wretched." 

The  young  Countess,  accustomed  as  she  was  to  Toe's 
varying  temper,  saw  that  her  emotion  was,  if  extravagant, 
sincere. 

"Go  to  my  room, "  she  said  after  a  second's  deliberation. 
"I  will  join  you  immediately.  We  do  not  start  for  quite 
an  hour."  She  glanced  at  a  clock  that  rose  beside  some 
armour  and  a  stand  full  of  antique  boar-spears.  "Ah," 
she  exclaimed,  flushing  in  turn,  but  with  anger,  "who  has 
committed  this  folly?  And  to-day  of  all  days!" 

The  heavy  crimson  curtain   of  the  northern  window, 


14  Schonbrunn 

which  for  the  past  four  months  had  by  her  express  orders 
hung  half-drawn,  had  been  thrown  back,  disclosing  the 
shattered  pilasters  and  carvings  of  the  adjoining  balcony. 
It  was  the  work  of  a  shell  thrown  from  Vienna  itself  during 
the  bombardment  in  April  last.  The  old  Count  had 
refused  to  have  the  balcony  repaired,  yet  whenever  he  saw 
it,  he  burst  into  one  of  those  rages  which  were  a  misery  to 
the  whole  household. 

She  called  the  major-domo,  glanced  in  the  direction  of 
the  curtain  and  turned  once  more  to  her  friend. 

"  Forgive  me,  dear  Toe.  Fritz,  who  looks  after  this  room, 
is  still  with  the  Landwehr. " 

"What  is  it?"  Toe  asked  bewildered.     "How,  your  face 
looks  cruel — no,  Roman,   Lombard,  menacing  anyhow"- 
searching  for  a  word.    "You  will  come  quickly?     Do  not 
let  Lan-Lan  or  Nusschen  keep  you. "     She  disappeared  up 
the  narrow  south  stair. 

Amalie's  intervention  in  the  matter  of  the  curtain  was 
just  in  time.  A  minute  later  the  old  Count  appeared 
in  the  doorway.  He  was  accompanied  by  a  little  neatly 
dressed  man  with  a  shining  bald  head,  with  busy  lines  about 
the  mouth,  but  an  agreeable  smile.  This  was  the  famous 
Councillor  of  Mines,  Count  Prostkeiya,  Lan-Lan's  husband. 

Bolli,  his  face  a  mask,  sat  down  beside  Kessling.  At  the 
other  end  of  the  room  Amalie  rejoined  padrino,  who  was 
now  standing  with  Baron  Freihoff  and  his  two  daughters, 
twins,  both  dressed  in  the  soft  semi-transparent  muslins  then 
the  fashion  in  Vienna,  which  alternately  revealed  and 
hid  the  outlines  of  their  fresh  young  figures.  The  two 
girls,  blushing  and  smiling  at  Amalie's  kindness,  kept 
breaking  into  little  spurts  of  childish  talk.  One  had  a 
stammer,  the  other  a  lisp,  and  both  seemed  very  inex- 
perienced and  gawky  beside  the  upright  grace  of  Nusschen, 
who  was  two  years  younger. 

"Our  fellows  are  useless  in  attack,"  said  a  young  officer 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  15 

of  Jagers,  looking  now  at  the  Count,  now  at  Freihoff ;  "and 
on  a  march  a  shower  of  rain  dispirits  a  division. " 

' '  I  must  beg  of  you  to  except  Liechtenstein's  troopers, " 
Freihoff  said.  "They  are  as  good  as  the  French.  We 
have  learnt  half  Bonaparte's  game  already.  We  will 
beat  him  in  time!" 

And  in  the  official's  arid  tones  the  names  of  Steininger, 
Smola  and  Oldenberg-Orsini  began  to  collide  rapidly  with 
those  of  Killer,  Bellegarde,  Kinsky  and  Schwartzenberg — 
heroes  or  quasi-heroes  of  the  campaign.  But  the  old 
Count's  harsh  laugh  interrupted  this  official  verbosity. 

"Yes,  next  time!  Next  time!  Irnmer  das  alte  Lied! 
Ever  the  same  old  song!  I  have  heard  it  sung  in  Austria 
these  fifty  years. " 

He  spoke  the  truth.  It  was  the  word  which  had  been 
used  to  palliate  Austria's  defeats  under  Daun  and  under 
Loudon  in  her  wars  against  Frederick  the  Great ;  it  was  the 
word  he  had  heard  used  to  salve  her  diplomatic  checks 
under  Joseph  II. ;  it  was  the  word  he  had  heard  used  after 
Valmy  in  1792  and  after  the  world-historic  repulse  of 
Coburg  in  1793.  He  had  heard  it  again  in  '94,  '95  and  '96, 
and  now  after  Wagram,  as  nine  years  ago  after  Marengo  and 
four  years  ago  after  Ulm  and  Austerlitz,  it  was  reiterated 
as  cheerfully  and  complacently  as  ever. 

The  Jager,  an  enthusiastic  young  soldier,  turned  to 
Amalie. 

"You  saw  the  French  armies  enter  Vienna,  did  you  not, 
each  man  with  a  hunk  of  meat  or  bread  on  his  bayonet 
point — trim,  clean  little  beggars,  with  not  a  superfluous  hair 
on  their  heads?  When  once  our  fellows  ...  I  beg  your 
pardon, "  he  said,  interrupting  himself,  and,  imagining  that 
he  had  started  a  topic  dangerous  to  the  old  Count's  temper, 
he  turned  in  the  direction  of  her  glance. 

A  little  smiling  old  lady,  in  the  elaborate  head-gear  of 
Maria  Theresa's  days,  had  come  gliding  out  of  the  dusk  of 


16  Schonbrunn 

the  great  north  staircase.  She  threatened  with  her  fan 
Bolli  and  Kessling,  she  blew  a  kiss  to  Amalie,  then  to 
Nusschen;  her  faded  eyes  beamed  with  intelligent  pleasure 
and  self-satisfaction;  but,  as  everyone  in  the  room  knew, 
she  probably  was  ascribing  to  each  a  name  or  a  personality 
that  was  not  his  own  or  not  her  own.  One  day  she  would 
mistake  Bolli  for  her  eldest  son,  dead  fifteen  years  ago; 
another  day  she  would  mistake  Amalie  for  the  latter 's 
sister,  Ulrica,  who  was  in  a  convent  at  Prague;  or  she  would 
confound  the  doctor  or  a  chance  visitor  with  the  younger 
Count  Esterthal,  Ferdinand  Albrecht. 

The  little  old  lady  was  Count  Esterthal's  elder  sister. 
She  now  stopped  right  in  the  middle  of  the  room.  Her  lips 
parted  in  a  fixed  smile,  showing  the  false  yellowish  under- 
teeth. 

"Whom  does  she  take  us  for  to-day?"  Kessling  asked 
with  obstreperous  gaiety. 

Bolli  made  no  answer,  but  under  his  lowered  eyelids 
watched  the  melancholy  scene,  afflicting  at  once  to  the 
sight  and  to  the  judgment.  The  entrance  of  Lan-Lan's 
husband  had  fronted  him  suddenly  with  the  ugliness  and 
the  reality  of  things,  and  the  sight  of  her  figure  in  all  its 
exotic  grace  seated  beside  the  trim,  carefully  dressed 
Councillor  of  Mines  sharpened  the  bitterness  of  the  im- 
pression. 

"Mon  Dieu,"  he  thought,  "la  vie  humaine!  Napoleon 
and  his  marshals  out  there  at  Schonbrunn  heap  up  glory 
or  heap  up  gold,  whilst  Time,  inexorable  Time,  turns  all  to 
a  derision,  just  as  it  has  turned  this  woman's  face  to  a 
grinning  mask!  But  the  mad  world-dance  goes  on,  aimless 
as  life  is,  aimless  as  love  is,  aimless  as  God  is  and  all  God's 
creatures!" 

"Whom  does  she  take  us  for  to-day?"  Kessling  repeated, 
for  he  had  the  rich  parvenu's  self-conceit  and  took  umbrage 
at  Bolli's  abstractedness. 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  17 

"As  if  I  knew,"  Belli  answered.  "Monkeys  from  Pots- 
dam or  Daun  and  his  staff." 

But  to  the  astonishment  of  everyone  the  old  Maid  of 
Honour  walked  straight  to  Lan-Lan  and  began  to  talk 
merrily  to  Count  Prostkeiya.  And  in  a  minute  or  two  she 
was  speaking  to  Lan-Lan  herself  as  though  she  were  the 
Archduchess  Maria  Christina,  dead  these  seven  years,  and 
laid  to  rest  in  Canova's  rococo-classic  monument. 

"All  Her  Majesty's  daughters  are  good  and  kind;  oh, 
my  dear,  so  carefully  trained,  as  for  Holy  Church  itself." 
Her  words  became  low,  broken,  solemn,  disconnected 
ejaculations. 

Belli  thought  of  the  histories  of  those  daughters  of  Maria 
Theresa — the  hideous  cloud  of  truth  or  calumny  that  year 
by  year  thickened  round  their  reputations — Marie  An- 
toinette, Marie  Carolina,  Marie  Josepha. 

"What  a  satire  upon  Holy  Church,  and  that  careful 
training!  Bah,  this  is  God's  planet,  not  mine,  and  He 
must  run  His  show  in  His  own  way." 


in 


Amalie,  on  escaping  to  her  rooms  on  the  first  floor,  did 
not  at  once  find  Toe.  She  lingered  a  minute  in  her  boudoir, 
charmed  by  the  sudden  stillness,  the  soft  perfumes,  and 
by  the  subdued  light  falling  on  its  costly  furnishings,  sofas, 
cabinets  and  rare  vases,  books  and  sombre  hangings. 

But  the  sound  of  her  maid's  voice  speaking  in  Italian 
and  Toe's  laughing  replies  in  the  same  language  came  to 
her  from  her  bedroom. 

The  spectacle  which  there  met  her  amused  and  amazed 
her.  It  was  no  longer  the  desperate  woman  that  had 
quitted  her  downstairs.  The  Princess  Durrenstein,  in 
her  bodice  and  underskirt,  her  arms  and  sloping  shoulders 
bare,  stood  bending  forwards  to  an  oval  mirror,  carefully 


1 8  Schonbrunn 

pencilling  her  eyebrows.  Her  gown  had  been  flung  on  a 
chair:  her  plumed  hat  and  veil  lay  on  the  bed.  On  the 
dressing-table  everything  was  in  confusion;  the  lids  of 
rouge  and  carmine  pots,  perfume  bottles,  brushes,  the 
crystal,  porcelain,  ivory  and  silver  of  the  toilet-service — 
all  were  mixed  pell-mell.  Tita,  Amalie's  maid,  a  flush  on 
her  face,  the  curls  loosened  on  her  forehead,  stood  behind 
the  impetuous  visitant,  her  left  arm  burdened  with  vari- 
ous articles  of  clothing — Toe's  cashmere  shawl,  a  scarf  of 
Alengon  lace;  and  on  her  right  a  cloak,  in  which  Amalie 
recognized  a  fur  capote  of  her  own,  sent  from  Mersan's 
two  days  ago. 

"En  plein  vice!"  Toe  cried.     "  Caught  red-handed." 

She  wheeled  round  and,  making  her  petticoats  swirl  like 
a  ballerina's,  she  threw  one  slender  and  exquisitely  neat 
foot  in  front  of  the  other  in  rapid  alternation. 

"But  where  did  you  get  this  capote?  You  will  wear  it 
to-day?  You  must,  you  must!  Bonaparte  cannot  stand 
a  shawl,  even  on  Josephine,  and  I  want  him  to  see  that 
Vienna  can  turn  out  as  elegant  figures  as  Paris — and  faces 
a  myriad  times  more  lovely! "  And  she  dabbed  her  freshly 
carmined  lips  on  Amalie's  cheek. 

"Aliens!  Let  me  try  it  on  once  more,"  she  said  to  the 
maid. 

Her  eyes  flashing,  her  lips  fixed  in  a  smile  of  excited 
pleasure,  she  slipped  again  into  the  coat  and  began  to  walk 
to  and  fro  in  front  of  the  mirror,  eyeing  herself  now  side- 
ways, now  in  face,  now  twisting  her  fine,  slender  neck  to 
see  her  back. 

"It  is  too  large  for  her  Highness,"  Tita  said  to  her 
mistress.  "I  told  Madame  la  Princess,  this,  but  she  is  so 
— so  irresistible. " 

"I  cannot  make  it  out,"  Toe  exclaimed,  stamping  her 
foot.  "Your  things  are  always  newer  and  more  chic  than 
Lan-Lan's  or  mine,  yet  she  has  ten  thousand  a  year  for 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  19 

dress  and  my  own  nota  three  weeks  ago  came  to  6342 
exactly.  Hein,  what  do  you  really  spend?  Do  you  bribe 
Mersan  in  secret?  Or  is  it  favouritism?" 

"Neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  dear  Toe.  It  is  simply 
thinking  a  little." 

Toe  with  a  shrug  turned  again  to  the  glass,  balancing 
herself  and  thrusting  out  one  after  the  other  her  slim  but 
deliciously  modelled  hips.  The  coat  would  not  hang.  She 
drew  it  off  petulantly. 

"There  you  stand,  you  superb  one,  and  give  never  a 
thought  to  your  own  perfections;  whilst  I,  I  would  give  a 
mine  in  Styria  to  have  shoulders  like  yours,  that  waist,  and 
the  rest  of  you."  Tita  aided  the  princess  to  dress  and, 
taking  the  capote  with  her,  left  the  room. 


IV 


Left  alone,  the  two  women,  each  sunk  in  her  own  thoughts, 
walked  once  or  twice  to  and  fro  the  large  room,  the  scents 
from  the  roses  and  heliotrope  outside  mingling  with  the 
definite  perfumes  that  at  that  date  hung  about  every  fash- 
ionable woman's  bedroom.  On  a  table  near  the  window 
stood  a  Sevres  vase  and  some  miniatures.  One  was 
Amalie's  mother;  another  showed  the  long  but  handsome 
and  intellectual  features  of  Prince  John  of  Liechtenstein, 
Rentzdorf  s  commander  and  the  most  brilliant  cavalry 
leader  of  Austria,  and,  after  Murat  and  Ziethen,  perhaps 
the  most  brilliant  of  modern  times. 

"You  see  how  Johann  requites  my  forbearance,"  Toe 
suddenly  burst  out,  releasing  her  arm  and  throwing 
herself  into  a  low  chair.  "These  three  days  have  been  a 
continuous  torture.  I  have  asked  him  to  explain;  but  he 
says  nothing.  I  have  offered  every  atonement;  but  still 
he  says  nothing.  Yesterday  I  forced  him  to  go  with  me  to 
matins.  I  gave  him  the  blessed  water,  but  he  would  not 


20  Schonbrunn 

give  it  me  in  return.  He  refused  to  kneel  beside  me;  he 
would  neither  pray  with  me  nor  for  me. " 

"But,  dearest  Toe,"  Amalie  remonstrated,  "why  did 
you  do  anything  so — foolish?" 

Toe  looked  at  her. 

"What  is  there  foolish  in  wishing  to  kneel  in  the  Holy 
of  Holies  beside  the  man  you  love  and  intend  to  marry? 
Oh,  yes;  I  know  what  his  brother  says  of  us:  'Watches 
that  never  show  the  same  hour. '  But  he  is  wrong.  Johann 
and  I — we  were  made  for  each  other.  Long,  long,  long 
ago  I  knew  it.  True,  Johann  does  not  believe  in  Rome; 
he  does  not  believe  in  Christ.  What  does  that  matter?  I 
believe  in  both ;  and  for  him  I  am  willing  to  risk  my  salva- 
tion. I  love  him.  I  love  him. " 

Amalie  had  a  return  of  her  impatient  mood,  but  she 
said  nothing,  silently  caressing  Toe's  hair.  At  length  she 
said  to  Toe  gently: 

"But  this  morning — what  did  you  and  Johann  do?" 

"This  morning?"  the  Princess  answered,  lifting  her  small 
tormented  features.  "It  seems  so  long  ago.  What  was  I 
wearing?  I  can  always  remember  in  that  way.  Ah,  I 
recollect.  I  was  in  black.  We  rode  together  round  the 
ramparts.  St.  Stephen's  bells  were  in  full  chime.  I 
demanded  straight  out  why  yesterday  he  had  acted  in  so 
cruel  a  way,  and  whether  he  had  ceased  believing  in  God. " 

"Well,  and  what  did  he  say  to  that?"  Amalie  urged 
smiling,  though  her  eyes  filmed  at  Toe's  naive  almost 
childlike  earnestness. 

"What  did  he  say?  Sitting  firm  on  his  horse  he  looked 
at  me  sideways,  up  and  down,  then  answered,  'Yes,  I  am 
a  Christian,  Toe,  in  my  own  way ;  that  is,  if  it  be  Christian 
to  love  your  enemies  and  do  ill  to  your  friends.  Even 
there,  of  course,  I  cannot  presume  to  rival  my  brother  in 
devotion,  and  still  less  you  ladies  of  Vienna  in  fervour 
where  a  French  officer  is  concerned.'  That  was  his  answer 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  21 

and  he  struck  my  horse  with  his  whip  and  sent  me  careering 
on  in  front.  He  wanted  to  kill  me.  And  I  should  not 
have  minded  a  bit  had  I  been  thrown  and  killed  on  the 
spot. " 

"And  afterwards — what  did  you  do?" 

"Nothing  wise.  When  he  overtook  me,  I  said  to  him, 
1  You  ought  to  love  me,  Johann,  for  you  do  ill  to  me  enough 
to  make  me  think  I  am  your  dearest  friend.'  He  was 
nicer  after  that.  He  said  that  in  Russia  he  had  been  study- 
ing the  Slav  nature;  that  he  hoped  by  and  by  to  comprehend 
it,  especially  as  it  unfolds  itself  in  the  hearts  of  Polish 
women.  Then  he  said  in  quite  an  odd  voice,  'Well,  at 
your  worst  you  are  better  than  the  best,  Toe:  by  God,  yes; 
the  sweetest,  greatest  thing  on  earth  to  me.'  All  the  same, 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  later,  he  left  me  at  my  door  like  a  dog 
that  in  pity  he  had  taken  for  a  run. "  She  began  to  tear 
at  her  lace  handkerchief  with  her  small,  white,  but  irregular 
teeth. 

"I  am  so  wretched,  so  wretched.  I  ask  myself  a  thou- 
sand times — why  has  this  come  upon  me?  But  there  is 
never  an  answer.  My  broken  engagement,  I  am  told,  was 
my  destruction.  But  how  was  I  to  know?  No  one 
warned  me:  no  one  dissuaded  me.  Johann  himself  con- 
gratulated me.  I  thought  I  was  doing  the  best  thing  for 
myself  and  the  best  thing  for  him.  He  was  poor.  He 
habitually  spoke  despitefully  of  women  and  of  marriage. 
I  thought  it  would  be  just  the  same  with  Johann  afterwards. 
I  wrote  that  to  him  on  my  honeymoon.  How  I  hate  him 
and  hate  myself  now  when  I  remember !  I  could  kill  my- 
self with  mortification  or  kill  him." 

It  was  not  the  depravity  of  the  confession  which  startled 
Amalie — she  was  too  much  a  Viennese,  too  little  of  a  hypo- 
crite; it  was  the  sadness  of  life,  of  all  life;  it  was  the  pain 
that  this  man  and  this  woman  had  brought  on  each  other, 
the  pain  they  were  yet  to  bring  on  each  other. 


22  Schonbrunn 

"It  is  Vienna,"  Toe  went  on.  "In  Warsaw  I  was  not 
like  this.  But  I  will  make  him  suffer.  When  it  is  too 
late  he  will  regret  me.  The  dead  are  always  valued. " 

Shiverings  like  those  of  a  fever  traversed  her  body. 
Then  with  an  abrupt  change  of  mood — 

"No ;  I  will  not  weep.  I  have  humiliated  myself  enough. 
The  villain!  I  have  but  to  drop  my  glove  and  ten  of  the 
best  men  in  Austria  spring  to  pick  it  up.  'The  Princess 
Durrenstein's  glove ! '  I  could  have  them  tear  each  other 
for  that  glove  or  for  the  stalks  of  the  grapes  I  have  eaten. " 

And  with  hectic  cheeks  and  hot  eyes  she  made  a  pirouette, 
advancing  with  mincing  steps,  then  retreating,  holding  up 
her  skirts  to  show  her  charming  ankles  and  shapely  calves. 

"Ja,  ich  bin  es,  bin  es,  bin  es, 
Bin  Prinzessin  Durrenstein ! " 

It  was  her  own  parody  of  the  refrain  sung  by  the  hawkers 
of  Tyrolese  wood-carving  and  used  with  dubious  success 
long  afterwards  by  Grillparzer  in  one  of  the  most  tragic 
scenes  of  his  most  famous  drama. 

Then,  kissing  her  hands,  she  made  as  it  were  a  triumph- 
ant exit. 

"Do  you  think  me  crazy?  Dearest,  dearest,  speak  to 
me.  Advise  me.  To  you  I  will  listen.  One  thing  only: 
I  cannot  give  him  up  again.  Never,  never!  I  will  be 
anything  to  him,  mistress  or  wife  or  sister,  but  I  must  have 
him.  The  Blessed  Sacrament  is  less  to  me." 

She  knelt,  pressing  herself  against  Amalie  like  a  younger 
against  an  elder  sister. 

"Marriage  is  the  lesser  evil,  Toe." 

"The  lesser  evil!"  came  the  passionate  cry.  "Oh,  is 
there  then  nothing  that  is  good  in  life?  Is  it  all  evil? 
How  terribly  you  speak.  Yet  you  are  right.  I  did  not 
think  thus  formerly.  It  is  Vienna.  It  is  Daruka.  I  can- 
not, cannot  stand  both  his  cruelty  and  his  inconstancy." 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  23 

"Be  reasonable,  Toe.     You  know  Johann's  character." 

Daruka  was  the  Princess  Ternitchsky,  a  Circassian 
married  to  the  scion  of  a  great  Viennese  family.  Amalie 
pointed  out  that  Johann's  assiduities  synchronized  with 
Toe's  own  flightiness  and  her  flirtation  with  Montesquiou, 
one  of  Napoleon's  aides. 

"  It  is  Vienna, "  Toe  muttered  in  a  kind  of  wanton  despair. 
"Life  itself  is  holy,  good  and  pure.  It  is  this  city  that  is 
evil." 

"Dear  Toe, "  Amalie  said  with  a  shrug,  "you  will  find  a 
Vienna  everywhere.  Besides,"  she  went  on  in  a  gentler 
voice,  "of  what  use  is  it  to  be  jealous  of  Daruka?  The 
man  was  never  born  who  could  look  on  Daruka  and  not 
desire  her.  The  terrestrial  Venus — the  Venus  of  the 
streets — Daruka  is  that  thing.  You  might  as  well  be 
jealous  of  the  woman  who  kisses  your  lover  in  his  sleep." 

"You — do  you  think  like  that  about — Rentzdorf?" 

Amalie  answered  steadily  though  with  averted  eyes — 
"Yes,  I  think  like  that  about  Heinrich. " 

There  was  so  strange,  so  sweet  a  music  in  her  voice  that 
Toe  started  back  ashamed  as  before  some  shrine  which  she 
had  approached. 

"And  that  is  woman's  life?  That  is  all  life — now  and 
in  the  past?  It  is  frightful;  it  is  frightful.  It  is  Vienna, 
its  rivalries,  its  balls,  its  ostentation,  its  extravagance,  its 
art,  its  music — everything  that  made  me  marry  Prince 
Durrenstein!  Oh,  I  know  it  now,  my  perdition!  At 
Warsaw  I  dreamed  of  a  lover  who,  though  miles  and  miles 
away,  yes,  and  in  the  company  of  the  most  seductive 
women,  would  see  my  image  only. " 

Amalie  got  up,  worn  out,  leaving  the  Princess  crouched 
together  by  the  sofa.  But,  constraining  herself,  she  an- 
swered : 

"Dearest  Toe,  Count  Johann  loves  you  if  man  ever 
loved  woman.  He  certainly  is  not  like  your  ideal;  for  this 


24  Schonbrunn 

that  you  name  your  ideal  is  not  only  a  mere  phantasy,  but 
a  stupid  phantasy.  You  might  as  well  say,  'I  will  not 
have  fingernails,  because  they  hint  at  claws ;  or  I  will  not 
have  a  single  hair  on  the  back  of  my  hand,  because  it  hints 
the  beast, '  as  to  wish  for  a  lover  like  this  block  of  wood, 
your  ideal. " 

"Amalie!    How  horrible  you  are!" 

"You  force  me  to  be  horrible." 

"I  force  you?    How?" 

"By  your  Warsaw  view  of  life;  by  your  cult  of  the  Slav 
temperament;  by  all  that  superficial  ideality  of  yours, 
confusing  the  thing  you  desire  with  the  thing  that  is  and 
ought  to  be!  Instead  of  looking  steadily  at  the  thing  which 
is  until  it  is  penetrated  and  transfigured  by  the  thing  you 
desire  it  to  be,  you  say  excitedly,  'The  thing  I  see  is  the 
thing  I  wish.'  Then  comes  the  awakening.  Dear  Toe, 
it  is  the  history  of  Poland,  and  you  know  it.  If  you  marry 
Johann  to-morrow,"  she  continued,  "he  will  meet  women 
like  Daruka;  you  will  meet  men  like  M.  de  Montesquieu. 
Purity,  passion,  the  body,  the  soul,  the  senses — it  is  all  more 
mysterious  than  we  think,  Toe.  There  are  thoughts  we 
keep  back  from  those  we  love  most  dearly.  Hourly  we  lie 
to  ourselves;  hourly  we  dissemble.  And  this  is  everlast- 
ingly right.  C'est  la  vie.  It  is  right  that  we  should  be 
compelled  to  obliterate  thoughts  just  as  we  are  compelled 
to  obliterate  old  bad  hidden  things  in  our  ancestral  past. 
Our  life  is  as  our  thoughts  are;  yet  neither  our  thoughts  nor 
their  consequences  are  within  our  power.  To  that  per- 
petual cry  of  yours,  '  To  whom  can  I  show  myself  exactly 
as  I  am;  tell  everything,  everything?'  I  answer, — Cer- 
tainly not  to  Johann;  nor  to  any  man.  Not  even  to  me; 
not  even  to  yourself." 

Amalie  stopped. 

"To  God,"  she  heard  Toe  whispering;  "oh,  I  tell  all  to 
my  God." 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  25 

"You  mean  in  the  confessional?". 

Toe  nodded. 

"You  never  do,"  Amalie  answered  in  a  moved  voice. 
"You  never  do.  You  forget  I  too  was  once  a  Catholic, 
and  know.  Never,  I  say,  never!  No  woman  ever  yet 
confessed  all  to  a  man.  Our  confessions, "  she  said  with  a 
singular  laugh,  "are  like  our  coiffures,  arranged  by  the 
invisible  lady's  maid  of  the  soul." 

Toe  shivered.     She  felt  miserable,  weak,  suffering. 

"Dear  Toe,"  Amalie  went  on,  speaking  now  in  a  low 
friendly  voice,  "I  say  all  this  to  you  because  you  are 
confronted  by  two  roads,  one  leading  to  disaster.  You  say, 
this  is  Vienna — well,  I  say  again,  the  suburbs  of  the  actual 
Vienna  are  spacious,  but  of  this  Vienna  of  yours,  the  suburbs 
are  wide  as  the  world." 

Toe  in  an  instant  was  on  her  knees  beside  her. 

"You  great,  beautiful,  high-souled,  dear,  dear  Amalie! 
I  was  a  demon  when  I  came  into  this  room;  and  now — an 
angel  I  am  not,  nor  ever  will  be;  but  you,  I  think,  are  near 
the  angels,  and  I,  I  am  near  you.  I  must  be  alone  to  think, 
to  think!  Where  can  I  go?  Round  the  garden — under 
the  cedars?  No;  I  will  drive  home  and  back." 

Downstairs,  Toe  found  the  company,  still  more  aug- 
mented, hotly  engaged  in  attacking  or  defending  the  authen- 
ticity of  an  anecdote  told  by  Lan-Lan  on  the  authority 
of  Madame  Raspogli.  Napoleon's  sister  Pauline,  Princess 
Borghese,  Madame  Raspogli  had  averred,  was  addicted  to 
the  vice  or  the  extravagance  of  milk  baths  which  cost  a 
guinea  each;  and  to  heighten  the  bizarrerie  of  this  taste 
she  was,  the  same  authority  had  affirmed,  carried  to  the 
bath  by  a  favourite  negro  named  Delmar. 

"The  mameluk!  The  mameluk!"  Kessling  cried  ex- 
citedly almost  as  Toe  entered  the  throng.  "Why  have  I 
not  thought  of  it  before?" 


26  Schonbrunn 

"Thought  of  what?"     Lan-Lan  asked. 

"Rustum — Bonaparte's  mameluk,  who  commits  his 
murders  for  him,  like  the  private  assassin  of  the  Borgias. 
The  murders  are  an  intelligible  service;  but  why  does  he 
keep  him  as  his  valet  ?  Not  till  this  moment  have  I  known." 

"Well,  what  is  the  reason?" 

"Why,  to  carry  him  to  his  bath — a  family  taste,  a  Bona- 
partist  idiosyncrasy!  It  is  glorious." 

There  was  a  shout  of  laughter. 

The  younger  twin  blushed,  the  elder  said,  "Disgrace- 
ful!" and  looked  death  at  her  sister. 

The  steady  tolling  of  a  bell  outside  got  on  Toe's  nerves 
even  more  jarringly  than  Vienna's  risky  stories.  It 
sounded  like  a  deathbell. 

"The  Church  of  the  Capuchins,"  she  thought  suddenly. 
"Let  me  go  there.  I  can  reflect  and  pray.  God  will 
illumine  me." 


Unlike  the  Princess  Durrenstein,  who  was  a  pure  Slav, 
Amalie  von  Esterthal  was,  by  the  mixture  of  her  blood  and 
the  discordant  traditions  in  her  descent,  a  typical  Viennese. 

On  her  mother's  side  she  was  Italian,  tracing  her  origin 
to  the  Ranieri,  a  fanatical  Guelf  house,  which,  banished 
from  Arezzo  in  the  fourteenth  century,  had  settled  in 
Lombardy  and  by  enterprise  or  war  had  gradually  become 
possessors  of  wide  tracts  of  grudging  or  fertile  land  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Monza.  Her  father,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  of  a  South  German  stock  and  drew  his  name  and  de- 
scent from  the  Counts  of  Hildenfeldt  in  Suabia.  Dis- 
possessed during  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  the  branch  to 
which  he  belonged  had  been  restored  to  comparative 
affluence  by  Leopold  I.;  and,  thrust  again  into  the  back- 
ground under  Charles  VI.,  had  re-emerged  under  Maria 
Theresa  and  her  successors.  Two  of  Amalie's  great-aunts 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  27 

had  been  maids  of  honour  to  the  empress-queen ;  her  father 
in  his  youth  had  entered  the  famous  Harrach  Guard;  of 
her  brothers,  two  were  in  the  Austrian  service;  a  third  was 
equerry  to  the  Queen  of  Naples,  Maria  Carolina,  Amalie's 
godmother;  a  fourth  was  a  priest.  Her  only  sister,  Ulrica, 
five  years  her  senior,  had  at  nineteen  adopted  the  religious 
life  and  was  now  in  the  convent  of  the  Ursulines  at  Prague. 

Amalie  herself  was  now  in  her  twenty-eighth  year.  Of 
these  years  the  first  fifteen  had  been  passed  in  an  almost 
conventual  seclusion  at  Monza;  the  next  seven  partly  in 
Austria  and  partly  in  Naples  and  Palermo  at  the  court  of 
Maria  Carolina;  the  last  six  in  Vienna. 

A  patrician  in  the  widest  as  in  the  narrowest  sense  of  that 
term,  she  seemed  by  her  birth,  vigorous  health  and  con- 
spicuous beauty  preappointed  to  a  life  of  outward  brilliance 
or  luxurious  calm.  Her  marriage  with  Ferdinand  von 
Esterthal  had  been  a  "love"  marriage.  It  stimulated  her 
senses  and  satisfied  her  pride.  He  was  good-looking;  he 
was  young,  and  apparently  her  slave;  he  was  by  his  friend- 
ship with  the  Archduke  Maximilian  one  of  the  most  envied 
officers  of  the  Guard. 

Suddenly  this  fabric  of  peace  and  illusionary  joys  dis- 
solved. 

In  the  same  week  and  almost  on  the  same  day  she 
received  the  news  of  her  mother's  death,  and  discovered 
that  her  husband  had  for  an  indefinite  time  been  false  to 
her,  that  he  had  now  as  mistresses  two  of  her  closest 
friends,  one,  her  brother's  wife,  Lucille  von  Hildenfeldt, 
the  other,  his  own  cousin,  Marie  von  Esterthal. 

It  was  as  if  a  thunder-bolt  had  struck  her  to"the  ground. 

In  the  days  and  weeks  of  suffering  and  perplexity  of 
heart  which  ensued,  of  sorrow  for  her  mother's  death,  of 
perplexity  before  her  own  fierce  humiliation,  she  had  to 
face  alone  the  problems  assailing  her  spirit — the  central 
problem  above  all,  long  shunned  and  now  thus  suddenly 


28  Schonbrunn 

and  terribly  unmasked — "What  art  thou  that  with  brute 
power  hast  fashioned  the  worlds  in  agony  and  now  hurlest 
on  me  this  anguish?" 

Untutored  by  suffering,  hate  and  the  lust  for  retaliation 
had  for  a  time  engrossed  her  thoughts ;  nor  was  it  until  the 
opportunity  of  a  fearful  vengeance  offered  itself  that  she 
recoiled  in  horror  from  the  mad  craving  to  make  her  in- 
sulters  suffer.  It  was  against  herself  that  her  hate  now 
gathered.  It  was  against  herself  that  the  murderous  in- 
stinct was  directed. 

But  again  when,  she  watched  the  frail,  spiritual  grace 
of  her  sister-in-law,  Lucille  von  Hildenfeldt,  she  had  put 
the  question — "Can  treachery  and  murder  have  lodg- 
ment in  that  form?  Can  it  be  evil,  the  desire  which  one  so 
fair  can  feel?  Wrong  and  sin?  Oh,  this  world  is  but  one 
great  wrong,  and  sin  is  the  only  reality;  good,  the  dream. 
Woman's  innocence?  Was  there  ever  a  time  when  I 
myself  have  been  innocent?" 

And  she  saw  now  that  it  was  not  their  guilt;  it  was  their 
imagined  bliss  that  was  the  arrow  quivering  in  her  side. 

A  reconciliation  patched  up  by  the  intervention  of  the 
Queen  had  left  her  rancour  unappeased.  "Win  back  your 
husband's  love,"  her  confessor  had  pleaded.  "You  have 
the  traditions  of  your  mother's  house  to  guard." 

"Yes,"  she  had  reflected  to  herself  in  scornful  irony, 
"let  me  be  a  good  wife,  since  a  mother  I  cannot  be.  And 
yet  why?  Why  should  I  win  back  this  man's  love  whom 
I  despise  and  loathe?  Amalie  von  Hildenfeldt,  the  girl 
who  loved  Ferdinand  von  Esterthal,  is  dead.  Would  I, 
the  woman,  indeed  remarry  with  this  well-born  jockey  and 
dog-trainer?  Is  this  indeed  God's  high  command?" 

All  around  her  was  lampless  darkness ;  the  law  of  conduct 
had  sunk  with  the  faith  from  which  it  was  derived.  How 
was  a  false  religion  to  beget  in  human  conduct  anything 
save  hypocrisy  or  a  false  law?  Living  in  conjugal  "peace," 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  29 

consenting  to  her  own  degradation  amid  her  friends'  ap- 
proval, she  was,  she  told  herself,  striving  to  find  a  place 
with  the  Egyptian  in  that  obscene  Malebolge  of  Dante. 

In  1804  she  returned  to  Vienna  in  a  state  of  mind  border- 
ing upon  madness.  Her  married  life  had  become  a  daily 
contamination,  but  from  this  she  was  now  determined  at 
any  cost  to  liberate  herself. 

The  intercession  of  "padrino, "  her  father-in-law,  pre- 
vented a  scandal.  He  had  been  her  mother's  friend  and 
Amalie  had  formed  a  strong  attachment  to  the  lonely  old 
man.  Her  own  father  lived  in  seclusion  dedicated  to  her 
mother's  memory,  passing  the  days  and  nights,  it  was  said, 
in  abstruse  studies  of  alchemy  and  astrology.  Divorce, 
despite  the  laws  of  Joseph  II.,  was  in  Austria  confined  as 
yet  to  the  middle  classes.  A  suite  of  rooms  in  the  left 
wing  of  the  Palazzo  was  allotted  to  herself;  the  right  wing 
to  Ferdinand;  the  public  apartments  and  those  of  the  old 
Count  occupied  the  remainder  of  the  house. 

VI 

"My  life  is  ended, "  she  wrote  in  her  diary,  "and  my  life 
is  not  begun.  I  have  not  known  an  hour  of  happiness 
which  I  have  not  proved  to  be  an  illusion  or  founded  on  a 
lie.  The  vain  successes  at  the  Court,  dress,  jewels,  the 
Opera,  the  theatre,  balls,  court  fetes,  admiration,  envy, 
pride,  my  marriage,  religion,  the  'peace  of  the  soul'  at 
Monza  and  at  Naples — what  have  these  been  except  the 
creations  of  a  lie  or  a  dream  ?  I  was  born  into  a  false  re- 
ligion, trained  to  worship  a  false  God.  I  made  for  myself 
a  false  world  and  in  it  found  false  friends,  false  joys,  false 
thoughts,  false  everything. " 

She  was  a  woman  to  whom  religion  was  necessary  if  she 
were  to  live ;  but  her  intellect,  at  once  exalted  and  darkened 
by  her  suffering,  had  as  yet  led  her  only  to  denial.  Never- 


30  Schonbrunn 

theless,  she  had  unawares  taken  the  first  step  towards  that 
vision  of  things  which  she  afterwards  found  in  Rentzdorf's 
dramas. 

"Life  is  meaningless,"  she  wrote,  "yet  live  on!  Life  is 
suffering,  and  beyond  this  earth  there  is  nothing;  yet  live 
on!"  Why?  Pressing  that  question  she  was  pressing 
towards  the  light. 

Unpretentious,  and,  considering  her  education  and  her 
environment,  singularly  free  from  affectation  and  class 
prejudices,  exquisitely  sensitive  to  beauty,  she  was  yet  de- 
nied alike  the  ambitions  of  art  and  of  social  rivalries  which 
made  life  a  sort  of  noisy  self-complacent  phantasmagoria 
to  several  of  her  contemporaries — to  Bettina,  for  instance, 
to  Rahel,  to  Caroline  Schlegel  and  to  Mariamne  vom  Stein. 

Rejecting  the  religion  of  Christ — which  as  a  kind  of 
Austrian  Jansenism  she  found  in  Vienna,  in  the  Markowitz 
circle  above  all — she  nevertheless  adopted  its  ethics. 

"Let  me  live  for  others. " 

She  gave  her  days  to  the  philanthropies  and  to  the 
"causes"  that  were  fashionable  in  the  first  decade  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  quickly  discovering,  with  a  humour  not 
wholly  bitter,  their  organized  imposture  and  innate  con- 
tradiction. "You  say  the  rich  pursue  phantoms  and 
shadows,"  she  said  to  Count  Markowitz,  "but  is  not  the 
struggle  of  the  poor  for  bread  as  phantasmal  as  the  struggle 
of  the  rich  for  pleasure?" 

Round  her,  the  falling  of  thrones,  the  tramp  of  Bona- 
parte's legions  and  the  monotonous  thunder  of  his  cannon 
seemed  a  not  unfitting  accompaniment  to  her  moody  days. 

VII 

It  was  in  this  state  of  mind  and  in  the  Markowitz  circle 
that  for  the  first  time  she  heard  the  name  and  became 
acquainted  with  the  poetry  of  Heinrich  von  Rentzdorf . 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  31 

At  Monza,  with  her  mother  or  alone,  she  had  read  much 
in  Italian ;  but  at  Naples  and  in  Palermo  after  her  marriage 
she  had  read  nothing.  Now,  in  Vienna,  as  German  grad- 
ually became  as  easy  to  her  as  Italian,  she  turned  in  avid 
curiosity  or  enthusiasm  towards  that  blossoming-time  of 
poetry  and  thought  known  as  the  Aufkldrung.  Herder, 
Lessing,  Jacobi,  Schiller,  Zacharias  Werner — their  works 
became  stars  in  a  wider  newer  firmament  of  the  soul. 

Heinrich  von  Rentzdorf,  who  was  still  quite  young,  had 
at  first  escaped  her  observation;  but  when  his  dramas  were 
once  in  her  hands,  she  divined  in  him  a  genius  more  akin  to 
Goethe's  than  to  that  of  any  of  his  contemporaries.  His 
ideas,  like  those  of  Goethe,  came,  as  it  were,  from  a  dis- 
tance; and  his  verses,  like  Goethe's  were  impregnated  with 
a  magic  or  a  mystery  borrowed  from  remoter  twilights  than 
ours.  He  had  Goethe's  passion  for  the  German  language. 
He  handled  each  word  as  if  it  were  itself  a  poem,  the 
achievement  of  some  unknown  but  perfect  artist.  "The 
quarries  at  Carrara  used  to  tremble  when  they  heard  the 
footstep  of  Buonarroti, "  the  young  critic  and  litterateur, 
Axel  Petersen,  had  written  in  the  Mercure  de  Vienne,  "so, 
I  imagine,  does  a  German  dictionary  when  Heinrich  von 
Rentzdorf  comes  near.  Austria  has  at  last  a  poet,  a  true 
magister  verborum,  a  master  of  words,  and  I  am  glad  to  be 
his  Annunciator,  if  that  be  not  too  presumptuous  a  name." 

Rentzdorf's  first  work,  the  drama  Caius  Marius,  pub- 
lished in  1803,  had  been  acted  on  nearly  every  stage  in 
Germany.  "It  had  even  paid,"  the  wits  said,  satirizing 
the  remuneration  which  at  that  era  even  the  most  suc- 
cessful book  or  play  brought  the  writer  "a  night  of  the 
author's  losses  at  the  gaming-table." 

Caius  Marius  was  a  drama  of  metaphysical  accusation 
and  revolt.  But  Marius's  dreams  of  world-unity  and  a 
world-wide  empire,  symbolized  in  the  silver  eagle  that  he 
gave  to  the  Roman  legions,  had  been  instantly  applied  by 


32  Schonbrunn 

"Young  Germany"  to  the  rising  spirit  of  nationality.  In 
the  Roman  oligarchs,  in  Sulla  above  all,  the  same  enthu- 
siasts saw  their  own  antagonists — the  feudal  princes,  ra- 
pacious or  cruel,  and,  in  their  narrow  ambitions,  the 
strong  allies  of  Napoleon. 

Goethe,  who  snubbed  Kleist  and  disregarded  Werner, 
had,  in  1803,  praised  Rentzdorf.  Marius  was  reviewed  in 
the  "  Museenalmanach  " ;  and  the  young  author  was  invited 
by  Karl  August  to  Weimar. 

But  Rentzdorf,  instead  of  "following  up"  in  the  same 
style,  as  Axel  Petersen  advised,  had  published,  first  a 
volume  of  verse  in  classic  metres  and  then  two  volumes  of 
prose.  The  former  had  a  timid  success;  the  latter  were 
failures;  but  in  the  beginning  of  1806  the  publication  of  a 
second  drama,  The  Death  of  a  Soul,  had  provoked  in  Vienna 
an  outburst  of  surprise,  anger,  and  at  last  a  storm  of  oblo- 
quy. The  over-praised  poet  of  Caius  Marius  was  now 
pilloried  as  a  Jacobin,  an  enemy  of  religion  and  of  the 
monarchy.  His  private  life  was  held  up  to  reprobation. 
He  was  at  that  date  not  yet  six  and  twenty,  but,  it  was 
insinuated,  he  had  accumulated  within  that  narrow  com- 
pass of  years  the  disorders  and  the  crimes  of  a  Borgia 
or  a  Catiline.  Abroad,  his  life  had  been  as  flagitious  as  in 
Vienna.  He  had,  it  was  alleged,  travelled  in  Greece  only 
to  live  there  in  pagan  freedom  with  a  beautiful  Greek  whom, 
before  the  very  altar,  he  had  torn  from  her  bridegroom. 
His  poems,  it  was  pointed  out,  exalted  the  marbles  of 
the  Parthenon;  but  the  battlefields  of  Marathon  and 
Leuctra  had  by  him  been  left  unsung.  True,  he  had  been 
one  of  the  band  who  cut  their  way  from  Ulm,  and  he  had 
fought  at  Austerlitz ;  but  could  the  writer  of  The  Death  of  a 
Soul  be  a  patriotic  Austrian? 

Literary  and  theatrical  Vienna  at  that  epoch  was  gov- 
erned by  two  old  men — the  poet  Alzinger  and  the  dramatist 
Ayrenhof,  both  reactionaries,  both  enemies  of  France  and 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  33 

of  Goethe.  In  their  attack  upon  Rentzdorf  they  were 
joined  by  a  third  septuagenarian,  Lorenz  Leopold  Haschka, 
the  author  of  the  Austrian  national  hymn. 

It  was  Haschka 's  incoherent  tirades  which  first  drew 
Amalie's  attention  to  Rentzdorf.  She  bought  his  books. 
Cains  Marius  left  her  puzzled  and  unsatisfied,  but  the  poems 
and  prose-studies,  and  above  all,  this  new  drama,  The  Death 
of  a  Soul,  enchained  her  brooding  spirit.  Schiller's  ethical 
rhodomontades  and  Goethe's  later  anxious  compromisings 
had  depressed  or  irritated  her;  but  here  was  a  writer  who 
had  gazed  steadily  upon  the  abyss,  here  were  words  and 
cries  torn  from  a  heart  that  had  been  goaded  by  a  suffer- 
ing fierce  as  her  own,  here  was  a  mind  that  in  its  unrest- 
ing strife  towards  the  highest  and  ultimate  things  had 
tolerated  no  compromise;  here  was  no  arid  scepticism, 
impotent  to  affirm;  here  there  was  affirmation,  a  lofty  and 
persisting  energy,  and  to  life's  problem,  an  answer,  terrible 
indeed,  but  fascinating  and  inexhaustibly  profound. 

The  drama,  The  Death  of  a  Soul,  had,  Alzinger  informed 
her,  been  written  for  the  profligate  actress,  Madame  X; 
and  Haschka  had  selected  as  the  prototypes  of  its  charac- 
ters several  well-known  personages  in  Viennese  society. 

"Dug  out  of  a  woman's  breast,"  Axel  Petersen,  on  the 
other  hand,  had  written  of  it  the  morning  after  the  first 
representation,  "revealing  a  power  truly  and  superbly 
tragic — vraiment  et  fierement  tragique. " 

"I  delivered  my  soul  from  hell,"  the  chief  character, 
Teresa  Malavista,  declares  when  her  lover  proposes  her 
return  to  the  convent,  "when  with  you  I  escaped  those 
walls.  And  you — you  would  cast  my  soul  back  into  hell? 
Ah,  it  is  you  who  are  possessed,  Corrado;  it  is  you  into 
whom  the  tempter  has  entered. " 

Conquering  her  anger  she  pleads  with  him,  remonstrates 
and  he  denounces  God's  vengeance  on  her  sin  and  on  his 
own. 


34  Schonbrunn 

"Sin?"  she  answers.  "What  is  sin?  Who  will  tell  us? 
Oh,  in  each  sin  that  with  you  I  sinned,  I  was  reborn  in 
earth's  first  holiness.  My  purity  till  then  was  incest,  my 
prayers,  blasphemy.  In  my  dead  body  my  dead  soul 
worshipped  a  dead  God.  Rebellion  was  in  me  a  cleansing 
fire.  I  renounced  my  vows,  but  took  greater  vows.  I  fled 
with  you.  Ah,  in  the  heaven  and  on  the  earth,  what  glory! 
What  a  light  on  the  mountains ;  in  the  forest  what  celestial 
voices!  You  remember,  Corrado,  you  remember?  We  hid 
in  the  summer  woods;  the  summer  lightnings  kindled  the 
leaves  to  a  roof  of  fretted  gold  above  us;  the  stars  of  night 
were  our  bride-candles. " 

Again  the  lover  denounces  God's  heavy  wrath  on  her 
and  again  she  answers  deliberately : 

And  again — "In  my  dead  soul  God's  dreaming  soul  was 
reawakened ;  the  wonder  of  His  vision  was  on  me  and  in  me. 
To  save  my  soul?  If  my  body  is  not  my  soul,  my  soul  is 
nothing.  Last  night  you  saw  God  there;  you  kissed  me, 
and  on  my  lips  tasted  God's  wine.  .  .  . " 

Seeing  in  her  beauty  Satan  only,  Corrado  turns  from  her 
in  horror,  crossing  and  re-crossing  himself;  and  to  all  her 
reasoning  and  to  all  her  entreaties  he  opposes  this  last  word, 
"Repent,  as  I  repent;  pray  for  yourself  as  I  will  pray 
for  you.  Turn  to  the  Crucified;  cling  to  the  Cross.  The 
Cross,  the  Cross.  ..." 

"Pray  for  me?  Murderer  of  God,  you,  you  will  pray — 
and  for  me?" 

But  the  strain  is  at  the  breaking  point;  she  is  a  woman  in 
a  man's  part.  She  falls,  uttering  wild  inarticulate  cries. 

He  leaves  her,  not  knowing  whether  the  sorceress,  as  he 
now  imagines  her,  be  dead  or  alive,  and,  obdurate  in  his 
resolve,  enters  a  monastery  three  days  later;  and  the 
woman  hearing  of  the  irreparable  act,  destroys  herself. 

In  the  last  scene  of  the  fourth  act  the  hero,  in  the  garb 
of  a  black  friar,  is  discovered  at  midnight  praying  in  his 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  35 

cell,  but  tortured  even  in  this  sacred  retreat  by  the  singular 
doubt — Does  he  not  by  praying  for  the  soul  of  a  dead  but 
unforgotten  mistress  imperil  his  own  salvation  and  hers? 
Has  not  all  been  in  vain — the  murder  of  her  love  and  of 
life? 

His  cry  "A  lost  soul!"  is  left  ringing  in  the  spectators' 
ears  as  the  curtain  falls. 

This  book  had  affected  Amalie  with  a  shattering  power. 
It  put  into  precise,  painful  distinctness  ideas  which  had 
long  worked  obscurely  in  herself,  here  in  Vienna  or  even  at 
Monza  long  ago.  It  seemed  to  her  the  voice  of  another 
age — but  of  what  age?  Not  the  era  which  Schiller  had 
outlined,  rising  like  a  palm  on  the  horizon's  verge;  not  the 
era  of  a  terrestrial  paradise  of  comfort  and  well-being,  such 
as  the  Girondins  had  visualized;  nor  yet  the  era  of  culture 
which  Count  Johann  had  accepted  from  Goethe's  teaching 
and  spoken  of  to  her  in  words  which  silenced  but  never 
convinced. 

In  the  spring  of  1806  she  quitted  Vienna,  going  first  to 
Prague,  then  to  Karlsbad.  It  was  a  characteristic  of 
Amalie  that  she  never  let  a  day  pass  without  some  hours 
under  the  open  sky,  walking  or  riding.  In  Vienna  the 
ramparts  and  the  rolling  meadowland  west  of  the  city  had 
been  her  recreation-ground;  at  Karlsbad  the  woods  and 
heaths.  That  year  in  her  health  a  sudden  buoyancy,  a 
mental  and  physical  harmony  had  declared  itself.  In  the 
leisured  weeks  at  Karlsbad,  she  read  and  re-read  all  Rentz- 
dorf's  writings, — steeping  her  soul  on  her  solitary  rides  or 
walks,  in  the  haunting  music  of  his  verse,  discovering  mean- 
while everything  possible  of  his  life,  appearance,  and  charac- 
ter, forming  her  own  impression,  sifting  the  true  from  thefalse. 

It  was  easy  for  her  to  understand  the  power  which  his 
personality  exercised  over  men  like  Count  Johann,  Belli,  or 
Lan-Lan's  brother;  it  was  not  less  easy  to  understand  the 


36  Schonbrunn 

epileptic  rages  or  senile  virulence  of  the  septuagenarian 
poets,  Ayrenhof  and  Haschka. 

Reading  The  Death  of  a  Soul  in  bed  one  morning  she 
suddenly  recollected  an  incident  in  Vienna  when  Haschka 
and  Ayrenhof  had  come  together  to  call  on  her  and  she  had 
introduced  the  subject  of  Rentzdorf's  drama — the  impo- 
tent rage,  the  skinny,  trembling,  uplifted  forefinger,  and 
Haschka's  quavering  scream,  "Rentzdorf?  Heinrich  von 
Rentzdorf?  Countess,  he  is  Antichrist;  a  blacker  atheist 
than  Bonaparte  or  Robespierre!" 

Recalling  that  incident  now  in  the  glorious  morning 
sunlight,  she  thrust  aside  the  book,  lay  on  her  back  and 
laughed  like  a  pagan  goddess  to  whom_Hermes  has  been 
narrating  a  freakish  story. 

Meanwhile  the  days  went  past :  summer's  heat  had  be- 
come autumn's  languors  but  still  she  avoided  the  return 
to  the  capital,  as  if  that  reading  and  that  scenery  had 
reared  around  her  a  palace  of  the  soul  in  which  she  could 
dream  of  a  peace  mightier  than  the  peace  that  seemed  to 
have  shipwrecked  in  her  life  for  ever. 

Amazed  at  the  suddenness  and  tenacity  of  her  own  pre- 
possession, "Can  I  be  in  error?"  she  asked  herself.  "Is 
this  thing  of  God,  and  in  this  old  world  can  a  newer  vision 
and  a  newer  faith  have  indeed  arisen?" 

To  her  at  least  it  had  arisen.  Earth  was  reinvested  in 
meaning:  its  bitterness  and  sorrow  remained,  but  the 
bitterness  and  sorrow  were  God's. 

That  summer,  at  one  of  the  fetes  in  the  Hofburg  devised 
by  the  Empress  Ludovica,  she  had  met  Rentzdorf. 

VIII 

Three  years  had  passed  since  that  meeting. 
In  the  surprise  of  the  passion  which  had  seized  her  it 
had  seemed  that  it  must  burn  itself  out,  self-destroyed  by 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  37 

its  own  excess;  and  in  the  fierceness  of  the  love-thirst,  the 
desert-thirst  of  the  soul,  she  had  let  herself  go,  with  sealed 
eyes,  on,  on,  on. 

Yet  the  days  had  grown  to  weeks,  the  weeks  to  months. 
Yesterday's  bliss  had  been  still  the  soul  of  to-morrow's  ec- 
stasy. The  anticipation  of  each  meeting  was  transport ;  in 
the  realization  the  actual  still  left  the  imagined  transport 
behind.  Gradually  the  order  of  their  days  was  regulated 
by  the  facilities  it  offered  or  the  obstacles  it  opposed  to  their 
meetings.  Society  and  the  drift  of  everyday  concerns  be- 
came an  increasing  impatience.  For  their  life-vision  like 
their  passion  was  isolating.  Except  in  the  ideal  forms  of 
music  and  of  Greek  drama  they  rarely  found  true  com- 
panionship. 

During  a  visit  to  Florence  in  the  days  of  her  revolt,  her 
loneliness  and  her  misery,  she  had  stood  long  in  front  of 
the  Dawn  of  Michael  Angelo.  The  energy,  the  divine 
beauty  and  the  diviner  suffering  in  the  naked  figure  had 
then  daunted  and  appalled  her,  like  some  dream  in  stone 
of  an  ecstasy  and  an  anguish  that  she  had  never  known  and 
never  would  know.  Now  she  saw  in  it  the  image  of  her 
own  virgin  passion,  her  own  awakening,  her  own  rebirth  in 
unexperienced  wonder  and  delight.  With  just  this  might 
in  her  limbs,  her  clasping  hands,  she  strove  towards  her 
lover  now. 

IX 

The  rising  war  feeling  throughout  Europe  in  the  winter 
of  1808-9,  the  hopes  rekindled  by  the  Spanish  insurrection, 
the  wild  surmises  and  wilder  rumours,  Austria's  heroic 
rashness,  Stadion's  recall,  the  opposing  policies  of  the  court 
and  the  Archduke,  and  at  last  the  certainty  of  war,  brought 
on  Amalie  the  first  ordeal,  compelling  her  to  face  the  worn 
question  of  public  and  private  duty. 

Rentzdorf's  decision  was  immediate. 


38  Schonbrunn 

"Here  is  no  debate,"  he  had  said,  "only  an  assertion. 
It  is  not  for  Austria,  but  for  ourselves  as  Austrians  that 
we  resume  this  war.  Germany's  shame  would  make  this  a 
shame,  this  that  we  are,  you  and  I. " 

Facing  death  apart  or  life  apart,  there  was  for  these 
two  passionate  beings  only  silence,  and  in  the  woman's 
heart  the  conviction,  heavy  and  chill  but  solemn  as  evening 
bells,  that  the  sinking  of  the  life-light  in  his  eyes  would 
leave  her  own  eyes  unseeing  also. 

Three  days  later  Rentzdorf  was  with  his  regiment  on  the 
road  to  Ratisbon. 

And  the  woman's  part?  The  part  of  the  mistress  left 
behind? 

That  r61e  Amalie  von  Esterthal  conceived  not  less 
greatly  than  her  lover  conceived  his  role  as  a  fighter. 

"To  see  in  that  hour  the  whole;  he  in  me  and  I  in  him, 
and  God  in  both,  working  to  His  own  great  end  across 
thousands  of  dead  men  as  across  thousands  of  dead  worlds, 
dying  in  them  to  live  the  mightier  dream  that  beyond 
Time  is  yet  to  arise — this  is  the  command  laid  on  me. " 
And  at  another  time  she  told  herself,  "Before  a  battle  the 
one  thing  forbidden  me  is  the  prayer,  '  God  shield  my  lover!' 
My  prayer  must  be,  '  God  for  Germany !'  And  after  a  bat- 
tle the  one  thing  forbidden  me  is,  '  Thank  God  my  lover  is 
safe!'  My  word  must  be,  'Is  it  defeat?  Is  it  victory?"1 

Thus  she  had  lived  through  April  and  the  campaign  of 
Ratisbon;  thus  she  had  lived  through  May,  and  the  horri- 
ble carnage  at  Eckmuhl,  Aspern  and  Essling.  Then  had 
followed  the  palpitating  awful  pause  of  Lobau,  when,  like 
a  caged  beast,  Bonaparte's  army  was  shut  up  in  a  small 
island  girt  by  the  Danube,  whilst  its  enemy  raged  around 
upon  the  eastern  shore,  yet  was  unable  to  give  the  death- 
thrust  to  the  entangled  brute  until  at  Wagram,  tearing  and 
gnawing  its  way  through  the  net,  out  on  them  the  monster 
sprang ! 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  39 

Worn  by  the  anxiety  and  fever  of  the  preceding  weeks, 
it  had  seemed  to  Amalie  that  she  could  endure  no  further 
strain,  that  with  another  battle  to  face  her  brain  or  her 
life  would  make  shipwreck;  yet  when  on  the  5th  of  July, 
the  battle  actually  came,  a  kind  of  mad  hostility  to  the  in- 
sulter  of  Germany  and  the  torturer  of  her  lover  and  herself 
gave  her  the  fierce  strength  which  hate  supplies. 
_  A  thunderstorm  during  the  night  had  raged  with  so 
terrifying  an  influence  that  it  turned  her  fears  for  her  lover 
into  a  momentary  vague  personal  fear,  and  a  kind  of 
gladness  had  filled  her,  till  in  contempt  she  turned  on 
herself. 

"What  is  this  storm,  which  in  all  Austria  will  not  destroy 
five  lives,  beside  to-morrow's  rage — to-morrow's?" 

The  day  of  the  battle  of  Wagram  rose  sultry  and  oppres- 
sive even  after  the  storm.  Dazed,  she  had  walked  from 
one  room  to  another,  then  to  the  garden  and  the  streets, 
then  back  to  her  rooms  again,  dry-throated,  dry-eyed, 
frantic  at  each  moaning  thud,  thud  of  the  cannon  not  ten 
miles  away.  That  sound  had  begun  at  six  in  the  morning; 
hour  after  hour  it  had  lasted;  it  seemed  as  if  it  would  last 
for  ever,  as  if  in  Vienna  here  it  were  the  beating  seconds' 
accompaniment  for  ever. 

It  was  now  noon.  In  the  garden  was  the  hum  of  bees 
and  the  ghastly  mimicry  of  summer  peace.  Her  brain  was 
parched;  it  felt  like  dust,  a  handful  of  dust  shaking  about 
in  her  skull. 

"The  symphony  of  battle,"  someone  had  once  repeated 
in  her  presence — someone  who  had  never  been  in  a  battle. 

Most  harrowing  to  her  had  always  seemed  that  fearful 
pause  for  prayer,  for  officers  and  men  to  receive  the 
sacrament. 

"The  symphony  of  battle!" 

To-day  she  could  see  in  it  neither  grandeur  nor  heroism. 
She  heard,  she  saw  only  the  repulsive,  hideous  reality — 


40  Schonbrunn 

the  roaring  of  one  kind  of  shell,  the  deadly  moans  of  another, 
the  terrific  crash  and  crackle  of  a  third ;  then  in  the  sicken- 
ing stench  and  smoke  the  gasps,  the  horrible  cries,  the 
yells,  the  silences,  the  curses,  the  laughter,  the  neighing  of 
mangled  horses,  the  crash  and  volleying  of  musketry  like 
gigantic  whips  of  steel  cracking  incessantly,  interminably. 

' '  The  symphony  of  battle  ?     What  mockery ! ' ' 

She  watched  the  creeping  hands  of  the  time-piece.  That 
frightful  thunder  northward  still  rolled  on,  carnage  and 
blood.  Once  an  awful  hurly-burly  followed  by  a  dreadful 
silence  made  her  spring  to  her  feet,  then  throw  herself  on 
her  knees,  her  handkerchief  pressed  to  her  mouth  to  stifle 
her  own  cries.  The  silence  was  the  more  terrific,  for  she 
knew  what  was  happening  in  that  silence — the  terrible 
charge  of  horse  or  foot,  the  battle's  essential  agony. 

The  cannonade  was  resumed,  fitful  but  persistent. 

"My  God,  will  this  battle  never  end?  How  long  then 
does  it  take  two  hundred  thousand  men  to  kill  or  mangle 
each  other  into  powerlessness  ? " 

Mistress  of  her  actions  no  longer,  she  went  out,  past  the 
garden,  through  the  suburbs,  into  the  inner  city,  going  she 
knew  not  whither,  seeking — she  knew  well  what  she  was 
seeking. 

Men  and  women  thronged  the  windows,  roofs,  towers, 
balconies,  watching  the  two  "squads"  of  gladiators,  each 
a  hundred  thousand  strong,  mangling  and  massacring  each 
other  on  the  Marchfeld. 

Long  lines  of  wounded  began  to  straggle  into  Vienna — 
an  unending  host.  The  infinite  sorrow  of  the  world! 
Earth  seemed  a  charnel-house;  its  graves  stood  open,  and 
she  saw  corruption — nations  and  men  and  empires.  In 
every  street  the  wild  rumour — "Defeat!";  in  every  street 
another  wild  rumour — "Victory!";  till  rumour  killed 
rumour  and  all  was  chaos. 

She  walked  on;  past  the  Prater,  across  the  river,  past 


The  Palazzo  Esterthal  41 

Austrian  villages  tranced  in  the  afternoon  quiet,  still  seek- 
ing— she  knew  well  what  she  was  seeking. 

The  July  evening  descended. 

"He  is  dead." 

Fate  with  inexorable  accent  spoke  the  words. 

"It  is  now!  It  is  now!  God's  dream  in  us  is  ended, 
God's  anguish  stilled.  ..." 

A  giant  hand  split  the  pulsating,  hot,  azure  cope  stretched 
like  a  blue  black  cauldron  lid  above  her,  split  it  and  flung 
the  halves  into  the  abyss,  and  in  the  firmamented  void 
the  torture  enginery  of  a  universe,  throbbing  and  panting, 
was  stilled.  The  worlds  fell  sundering,  little  heaps  of  dust 
falling  upon  little  heaps  of  dust. 

"  It  is  finished.  Being's  drama  is  ended.  Self -destroyed, 
the  world-soul  passes  to  its  peace. " 

That  had  been  in  July.     Now  it  was  October. 

"And  to-day — this  day  or  to-morrow  at  latest  I  shall  see 
him  again." 

She  took  out  his  letter  and  for  the  twentieth  time  read 
the  open  words  and  the  cypher  they  concealed. 

Since  the  surrender  of  Vienna  in  April  every  letter  that 
entered  or  left  the  city  was  read  by  Bonaparte's  secret 
police.  The  lovers  had  accordingly  invented  a  method  of 
communication  by  inserting  a  real  letter  within  the  words 
of  a  sham  letter.  The  difficulty  of  writing  such  a  letter 
was  extreme;  but  they  had  leisure  enough,  and  the  difficulty 
was  diminished  by  the  ease  with  which  both  wrote  Italian 
and  German. 

"  I  will  be  in  Vienna  in  four  days  from  the  writing  of  this, 
or  at  most  in  six." 

She  studied  the  cypher  again,  testing  it  in  every  way. 
The  meaning  was  unmistakable. 

"To-night!"  she  whispered  to  herself  with  madly  beating 
heart.  "Let  me  not  die  of  the  joy  of  it!  To-night!" 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   NOON   PARADE 


AT  half-past  eleven  the  old  Count,  wrapped  in  rugs  and 
shawls,  seated  himself  angrily  in  front  of  Toe  and 
Amalie  in  the  back  seat  of  the  Esterthal  carriage. 

The  condition  of  the  harness  and  of  the  horses  was  a  re- 
minder of  his  own  and  Vienna's  humiliation,  and  at  the  last 
moment  he  was  about  to  give  up  this  drive.  Yet  he  owed 
Andre"ossy  and  the  French  Emperor  this  courtesy;  he  was 
conscious  too  of  an  unadmitted  curiosity — the  wish  to  look 
face  to  face  on  this  man  whom  he  had  not  seen  since  1802, 
when  as  world-dictator  at  Amiens  and  at  LuneVille  he  gave 
peace  to  Europe. 

"ToSchonbrunn." 

Ten  minutes  later,  from  a  rise  of  ground  they  saw,  less 
than  a  mile  away,  a  low  green  hill  crested  with  a  white 
pillared  temple  or  basilica.  Nearer,  the  gleam  of  the  noon- 
day sun  flashed  on  a  triple  row  of  windows  and  a  long  grey 
frontage  of  stone. 

It  was  the  palace  of  Maria  Theresa.  The  green  hill  be- 
hind it  was  the  Gloriette.  There  it  lay  like  a  living  thing, 
in  the  wide  sultry  stillness  of  this  autumn  day. 

"How  desolate!"  Toe  exclaimed.  How  desolate!  "It 
crouches  like  a  beautiful  slave.  ...  If  stones  could 
have  sense,  those  walls  would  weep. " 

The  old  Count  lifted  his  heavy  lids.  He  looked  at  the 

42 


The  Noon  Parade  43 

long  grey  pile.  Even  at  this  distance  he  could,  with  his 
soldier's  sight,  make  out  the  massive  ornamentation,  the 
colonnade,  the  outer  staircases,  the  two  huge  obelisks,  each 
surmounted  by  the  Austrian  eagle's  outspread  wings. 
To-day  above  that  eagle  floated  everywhere  the  French 
tricolour,  emblem,  to  his  eyes,  of  all  that  was  most  unspeak- 
able and  hideous  in  modern  times — the  Paris  mob's  maniac 
cruelty,  the  prison  massacres,  the  murdered  queen,  the 
humiliation  year  by  year  of  Austria's  war-chiefs;  Coburg, 
Klerfayt,  Beaulieu,  Wurmser,  Cray,  Alvintsky,  Mack,  and 
now,  greatest  of  all,  the  Archduke  Charles. 

"Yes;  yes,"  he  muttered  with  a  touch  of  weary  fatal- 
ism. "It  is  so;  it  is  so." 

This  Bonaparte  seemed  to  beggar  admiration.  Already 
he  had  outdistanced  every  human  competitor,  past  or  pre- 
sent, in  the  race  for  glory. 

He  looked  again  at  the  palace.  What  another  Austria 
and  what  another  France  it  had  been  when  as  a  boy  sixty 
years  ago,  he  had  seen  that  structure  rise,  piece  by  piece, 
the  rival  of  Versailles !  Those  broad  green  walks,  those  deep- 
embowered  walls  of  yew,  those  cool  green  niches  enclosing 
the  white  limbs  of  statues, — a  royal  pleasaunce  indeed, 
fit  for  an  empress's  devotion  to  her  gallant  strong-thewed 
husband-lover,  Francis  of  Lorraine! 

"And  now  instead  of  Daun  and  Loudon,  it  is  Bonaparte 
and  his  Septembriseurs. " 

He  lowered  his  lids  again  and  sank  in  somnolent  sullen 
brooding.  His  face,  Toe  thought,  the  grey  moustaches  and 
closed  eyes,  looked  like  one  of  the  old  Teutonic  knights 
carved  in  stone  in  the  cathedral  of  Kracow. 

They  were  now  within  three  hundred  yards  of  the  narrow 
stream  of  the  Wien  which  flows  close  past  the  main  entrance 
to  the  palace.  Around  the  gilt-spiked  railings  the  crowd 
stood  three  or  four  deep,  but  as  yet  it  was  a  listless,  silent 
crowd. 


44  Schonbrunn 

A  post-chaise  full  of  women,  drawn  by  four  spirited  horses, 
jolted  past  the  Esterthal  carriage  and  with  laughter  and 
greetings  swept  into  the  huge  quadrangle. 

"Who  is  she  in  the  white  hat  and  heron's  plume?"  the 
Count  enquired. 

"Madame  Bellegarde, "  Amalie  answered;  "Bausset,  the 
maitre  du  palais,  has  given  her  a  window. " 

"Go  round  by  the  Bruhl  road,"  he  said  harshly  to  the 
coachman.  "We  need  not  go  in  yet. " 

Before  this  spectacle  of  the  wife  of  an  Austrian  field- 
marshal  rushing  to  stare  at  Bonaparte,  the  Austrian  in  him 
was  once  more  thoroughly  awakened.  He  had  again  to 
choke  down  the  command  to  return  to  Vienna. 

The  horses  were  backed,  and  the  detour  began. 

This  road  led  through  the  rugged  and  picturesque  scenery 
south  of  the  capital.  The  air  was  sweet;  the  stillness  be- 
came momentarily  more  profound,  affecting  Amalie  with  an 
intensity  almost  morbid.  It  was  one  of  those  serene  au- 
tumn days  which  appear  the  very  emblem  of  all  that  the 
world-spirit  strives  throughout  eternity  to  attain. 

Like  most  cultured  women  of  her  era  Amalie  had  been 
drawn  into  the  torrent  of  "  sentimentalism  "  associated  with 
the  names  of  Holderlin,  Volney,  Ossian  and  Chateaubriand; 
but  in  Rentzdorf  she  had  found  a  thinker  and  a  poet  who 
gave  a  deeper  interpretation  of  nature  as  to  art. 

This  emotion,  this  spiritual  yet  enervating  melancholy 
was  now  upon  her,  evoking  as  its  harmony  the  memories 
of  days  with  her  lover — now  an  assignation  in  old  Vienna, 
or  here  amid  this  very  scenery,  or  an  "  Ausflucht "  during 
the  first  year  of  their  intimacy,  when  they  had  spent  eleven 
days  in  a  solitary  inn  mid  the  Carinthian  forests. 

"Those  autumn  days!"  she  said  under  her  breath. 
"  Their  tranced  silence  and  those  songless  woods! " 

The  scent  of  the  Carinthian  pines  was  wafted  to  her  down 
the  years.  The  yearning  which  seized  her  was  fierce  as 


The  Noon  Parade  45 

pain.  She  half  closed  her  eyes  lest  any  outward  sight  or 
sound  should  mar  the  dream. 

Until  those  eleven  days  life's  actualities  had  ever  fallen 
short  of  her  ardent  imagination.  Therein  life  differed  from 
Nature  and  from  Music.  For  till  then  Nature's  glories,  a 
wide  landscape  under  a  setting  moon,  twilight  by  a  lake,  the 
midday  stillness  falling  between  a  mountain  gorge  had, 
like  Music,  exceeded  the  heart's  imaginings  and  held  it  in  a 
rapture  of  adoration.  But  those  days  in  the  Carinthian 
inn  had  ushered  in  a  mystic  golden  chain  of  linked  hours  in 
which  life's  actualities  left  behind  even  Music's  and  Nature's 
transcendencies. 

"You  are  mad,  and  you  infect  me  with  your  madness," 
Toe  had  once  said  to  her  in  one  of  her  flashes  of  Slav  in- 
tuition, "but  I  would  rather  know  this  madness  of  yours 
than  all  the  world's  wisdom.  Maria  Magdalene — what 
she  might  have  been  to  Christ,  that  you  are  to  Rentzdorf . " 

"Thanks,  I  prefer  Amalie  von  Esterthal, "  she  had 
answered. 

The  recollection  roused  her,  and,  smiling,  she  looked  at 
Toe's  pensive  face. 

The  old  Count,  his  thin  shoulders  and  figure  emerging 
from  the  rugs  like  the  head  and  neck  of  a  tortoise  from  its 
shell,  was  teasing  her  about  Poland. 

"Who  is  the  greatest  fool  amongst  your  kings,  Princess?  " 

"Sobieski, "  Toe  retorted,  guessing  his  intention.  "And 
why?  Because  he  aided  Austria  and  delivered  Vienna  for 
you  when  he  might  have  let  the  Turks  sack  it. " 

"Right,"  he  answered.  "And  I,  an  Austrian,  praise 
your  wit.  And  now  I  put  to  you,  a  Pole  of  the  Poles,  a 
second  conundrum — who  is  the  next  greatest  fool  after  John 
Sobieski?" 

Toe  blinked  her  eyes  as  though  the  sun  were  in  them;  but 
the  device  did  not  give  her  inspiration. 

"I  will  tell  you,  Princess.     It  is  Poniatowski;  it  is  your 


46  Schonbrunn 

precious  prince  Poniatowski,  the  betrayer  of  Germany,  the 
abettor  of  Bonaparte. " 

"Poniatowski  is  a  hero,  not  a  traitor,"  Toe  flamed  out 
indignantly.  "He  may  be  false  to  Germany,  but  he  is  true 
to  Poland;  none  truer,  none." 

"Well,  we  shall  see,"  the  old  Count  said  sententiously, 
touching  the  tip  of  one  of  Toe's  delicate  ears.  "A  knavish 
speech  remains  steadfast  in  a  knavish  ear.  Time  will  bring 
my  words  to  light. " 

And  satisfied  with  the  vaticination,  he  pointed  to  a  dell 
thick  with  gorse  and  brambles  and  remarked  that,  like  the 
ground  on  which  Schonbrunn  stood,  it  had  once  belonged  to 
the  Knights  Templars. 

A  bugle  call  rang  out  clear  and  sweet  in  the  stillness.  It 
came,  not  from  Schonbrunn,  but  from  their  right — from  the 
south-west  from  some  cantonment. 

"You  have  Prince  Berthier's  passes?  "  he  said  suspiciously 
to  Amalie.  "It  is  certain  that  he  will  be  present  at  this 
parade?" 

"Quite  certain,  padrino.  He  told  me  so  in  the  Graben 
yesterday. " 


ii 


The  two  fountains  in  front  of  Schonbrunn,  the  one  rep- 
resenting the  Danube  and  its  tributaries,  the  other  the 
recently  annexed  Polish  provinces,  were  being  stared  at  con- 
temptuously or  negligently  by  the  French  troops  now  filling 
the  spacious  quadrangle.  A  group  of  carriages,  occupied 
almost  exclusively  by  Viennese  nobility,  was  stationed  close 
to  the  eastern  wing  of  the  palace. 

"Well,  monsieur  le  baron,  what  are  the  ladies  of  Vienna 
saying  of  us  now?"  asked  a  French  aide-de-camp,  stopping 
his  fine  black  horse  close  to  the  carriage  in  which  Freihoff, 
the  official,  sat  with  the  twins. 


The  Noon  Parade  47 

Disconcerted  by  the  apostrophe,  which  seemed  to  demand 
a  witty  reply,  Freihoff  put  on  a  look  of  sulky  dignity  and 
said  nothing. 

"Why,  what  the  devil  should  they  say  of  you?"  a  Jager 
answered.  "The  women  of  Vienna  have  memories.  Have 
you  not  robbed  them  of  sixty  thousand  men,  their  cousins, 
brothers,  lovers,  husbands  of  friends?" 

Montesquiou,  the  aide-de-camp,  a  stranger  to  the  speaker, 
affected  not  to  hear.  Though  he  had  a  tinge  of  the  brutish 
manners  of  the  Napoleonic  staff,  he  was  a  gentleman  and 
felt  that  he  had  brought  the  retort  upon  himself. 

Two  other  French  officers  sitting  their  horses  a  few  yards 
away,  overheard  Montesquieu's  question  and  the  Jager's 
answer. 

"What  is  that  the  Austrian  says?"  one  of  them  muttered 
to  his  companion.  "Bigre,  have  we  not  given  Vienna 
thirty  thousand  French  stallions  that  neigh  as  joyously  to 
those  Austrian  jennets  as  any  Pandour  or  Croat  of  them  all? 
Hein?" 

"  Taisez-vous,  Legros !  Are  you  drunk  by  twelve  o'clock? 
Have  you  no  eyes?" 

The  officer  who  spoke  thus  angrily  was  Colonel  Favrol, 
a  man  of  good  family  like  Montesquiou,  and  though  an 
enthusiast  for  Bonaparte,  yet  possessing  the  mind  of  an 
artist  and  a  dreamer.  Count  Esterthal's  carriage  had  at 
that  moment  drawn  up  immediately  beside  that  of  Bolli 
and  Freihoff,  and  he  himself  and  Legros  were  the  two  officers 
quartered,  not  indeed  upon  the  Palazzo  Esterthal,  but  upon 
the  old  Count's  Opera  box. 

"Ah,  your  Viennese  flame!  She  too  is  here,  is  she?" 
Legros  answered,  thrusting  out  his  thick  red  underlip. 

Amalie,  after  a  friendly  answer  to  Favrol's  salute,  glanced 
quickly  at  the  terrace  and  double  flight  of  stairs  above  the 
colonnade  on  her  left,  and  then  at  the  waiting  crowd  outside 
the  railings — shop-keepers,  artisans,  loafers,  beggars,  thou- 


48  Schonbrunn 

sands  of  German  or  Czech  faces,  round,  honest,  frank,  sar- 
castic or  supercilious. 

A  quick  roll  of  drums  announced  the  arrival  of  a  division 
of  the  Guard.  The  regiments  of  foot  began  to  move  to 
their  places.  The  huge  oblong  was  now  packed  with  troops, 
horse  and  foot — cuirassiers  and  Polish  lancers,  hussars, 
chasseurs  and  grenadiers.  Aides  were  riding  about  in  all 
directions.  The  commands  of  superior  officers  were  re- 
peated by  their  subordinates  and  passed  from  rank  to  rank. 
The  joyous  peal  of  a  bugle  was  followed  by  the  swift,  in- 
credibly graceful  evolution  of  some  squadrons  of  cavalry. 

"Those  hats  must  be  very  uncomfortable  on  a  hot  day, " 
naively  observed  the  younger  twin,  gazing  at  the  shakos  of 
the  grenadiers. 

No  one  answered  the  remark.  All  eyes  were  on  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  horsemen  or  on  the  sombre  lines  of  the  infantry, 
those  world-conquering  legions,  enhaloed  as  by  an  aureole 
with  the  light  of  victory  which,  kindled  at  Valmy,  had 
burned  with  a  brighter  and  ever  brighter  lustre  through  years 
of  war,  from  Arcola  and  Marengo  to  Austerlitz,  Jena  and 
Wagram — seventeen  years  of  war,  battles  of  the  republic, 
battles  of  the  directory,  battles  of  the  consulate,  battles  of 
the  empire. 

An  adjutant  with  a  pale  and  angry  face  galloped  up  to 
Favrol,  who,  stopping  by  Amalie's  carriage,  had  begun  to 
name  the  regiments  to  her. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  Favrol  asked,  impatient  at  the 
interruption. 

"The  3 ist  again,  mon  colonel!  They  will  be  late  at 
God's  judgment  day  if  they  can — these  dogs1." 

Favrol  by  a  word  accorded  him  the  permission  to  leave 
his  post,  and  he  dashed  through  the  main  gates  between  the 
two  great  obelisks  and  the  gilt  eagles  glittering  in  the  au- 
tumn noon. 

Toe's  eyes  followed  the  hussar. 


The  Noon  Parade  49 

"He  is  going  to  Nussdorf, "  she  thought,  trying  to  recol- 
lect the  name  of  the  division  quartered  in  that  suburb. 

"Who  is  in  command  of  Nussdorf?" 

"General  Vandamme,  madame  la  princesse, "  Favrol 
answered. 

Toe  averted  her  head.  Vandamme's  savagery  seemed  to 
taint  the  air. 

Turning  once  more  to  Amalie,  Favrol  resumed  his  talk. 
Would  she  be  at  the  opera  to-night?  It  was  to  be  Mozart's 
Cosifan  tutti;  the  Emperor  had  given  the  order. 

But  a  murmur  and  a  stir  ran  right  round  the  crowd  sta- 
tioned outside  the  iron  railings  tipped  with  gilt  spear-points. 
A  deep  and  presaging  silence  followed,  a  silence  like  that  in 
a  cathedral  when  the  bell  announces  the  uncovering  of  the 
Host. 

Napoleon  was  about  to  appear. 

A  riderless  white  horse  had  been  led  forward  and  stood 
surrounded  by  equerries  at  the  foot  of  the  stair  in  front  of 
the  palace  door. 

Seconds  ticked  past;  a  minute;  two  minutes;  four;  still 
he  did  not  come. 

The  murmurs  rose  again.     What  had  happened? 

Innumerable  eyes  were  fastened  on  the  white  horse, 
studying  each  detail  of  its  green  and  gold  trappings.  Was 
this  the  famous  charger  Solyman,  one  citizen  immediately 
behind  the  group  of  carriages  asked,  or  was  it  JEsop? 
It  was  the  Arab,  another  asserted,  which  Maximilian  I. 
of  Bavaria  had  presented  to  the  French  Emperor.  The 
frontlet  and  jewelled  bit  made  that  indisputable.  And  in 
complacent  slow  South  German  he  narrated  an  anecdote  to 
his  neighbour,  who  had  that  morning  arrived  from  Prague. 
Napoleon,  returning  one  summer  evening  from  Vienna  to 
Schonbrunn  and  putting  his  horse  to  the  gallop,  had  been 
thrown  violently  just  outside  the  suburbs.  It  was  the  first 
time  he  had  ridden  the  Bavarian's  gift. 


5O  Schonbrunn 

"Is  that  true?"  one  of  the  twins  asked  in  a  low  voice 
speaking  in  French. 

"Most  certainly,"  Kessling  answered  dictatorially.  "It 
was  a  Thursday,  the  i8th  May,  three  days  before  Aspern, 
a  moonlight  night.  The  French  Emperor  was  returning 
from  a  visit  to  the  Alleegasse,  Prince  Berthier's  lodging. " 

Outside  the  railings  the  conversation  continued. 

"Why  is  the  horse  named  Solyman?"  the  Prague  citizen 
asked. 

"To  affront  the  Viennese,"  came  the  answer.  "Thus 
Napoleon  is  as  much  greater  than  Solyman  II.  as  the  rider  is 
greater  than  the  horse.  D'ye  see?  As  how?  We  Vien- 
nese brag  of  our  victory  over  Solyman;  Napoleon  sends  him 
out  to  grass  or  rides  him  into  battle." 

There  was  a  laugh.  Toe's  eyes  were  dancing.  She  al- 
ways had  a  pleasure  in  the  wit  of  the  streets. 

"Ah,  what  is  that?" 

A  figure  in  a  blazing  uniform  all  gold  and  scarlet  had 
appeared  on  the  balcony.  An  order  was  shouted  at  the 
same  instant.  Two  adjutants  galloped  across  the  courtyard 
in  the  direction  of  the  western  gate. 

But  the  troops  still  stood  grim  and  silent  as  bastions 
gleaming  with  brass,  iron  and  steel. 

Once  more  there  was  the  hush  of  awed  expectancy.  Still 
Napoleon  did  not  come. 

Meanwhile  the  white  horse  made  himself  comfortable 
and,  pawing  the  ground,  swished  the  flies  from  his  quarters 
with  his  short-cut  tail,  tranquil  as  though  he  were  waiting 
for  a  Viennese  mercer  returning  to  his  shop  in  the  Graben, 
instead  of  for  an  Emperor  about  to  review  the  most  famous 
legions  in  the  annals  of  war. 

To  Amalie  the  air  seemed  suddenly  to  have  grown  sultry 
and  oppressive.  Her  heart  was  beating  unsteadily.  The 
sensation  which  she  experienced  was  exactly  like  that  which 
in  a  theatre  she  experienced  when  the  curtain  was  about  to 


The  Noon  Parade  51 

rise  on  a  scene  too  harrowing.  It  was  against  these  men  and 
above  all  against  the  man  who  was  about  to  appear  that  her 
lover  had  fought ;  it  was  to  these  men  that  she  owed  the  sick 
horror  of  the  days  before  Wagram. 

Involuntarily  she  glanced  around.  Over  the  old  Count's 
features  was  passing  a  mask  of  grey  and  rigid  stone. 
Bolli's  look  retained  its  habitual  light  cynicism,  but  there 
was  a  tightness  about  the  mouth.  Kessling  was  trying  to 
imitate  Bolli's  indifference,  but  his  mouth  hung  slightly 
open ;  his  eyes  stared.  The  elder  twin  sat  demure  and  stiff. 
The  younger  had  ceased  to  gaze  at  her  own  red-heeled  shoes 
and  embroidered  stockings,  and  lolled  with  her  slim  legs 
crossed. 

The  crowd  began  to  fret  and  curse.  Why  did  he  not 
come?  Being  German,  it  was  now  too  excited  to  gossip. 
It  could  only  wait  stupidly  sullen  or  stolidly  good-natured. 

And  here  within  this  quadrangle  and  yonder  outside  the 
railings,  in  the  brains  that  ticked  behind  those  thousands  of 
eyes,  something  of  the  opinions  expressed  in  the  Palazzo 
Esterthal,  something  also  of  the  opinions  of  later  genera- 
tions, were  passing  and  re-passing  in  a  more  or  less  synco- 
pated form.  To  some  Napoleon  was  a  mere  criminal, 
harsh,  egoistic,  brutal,  the  assassin  of  d'Enghien,  the  assas- 
sin of  Palm;  to  others,  he  was  already  the  hero  of  romance, 
simply  "the  greatest  man"  depicted  forty  years  later  in 
Thiers'  fatuous  and  famous  volumes;  to  others,  a  giant 
mediocrity,  destitute  of  supreme  genius  even  in  war,  yet 
coveting  and  obtaining  all  that  the  ordinary  man  covets 
and  seeks  to  obtain;  to  a  few,  something  supernatural,  por- 
tentous and  evil.] 

Toe  became  restless,  and  repeatedly  turned  to  look  at 
Amalie.  The  latter  sat  silent,  feeling  rather  than  seeing  the 
quick,  nervous  motion  of  Toe's  long  lashes.  She  felt  the 
heat  of  the  sun,  now  right  overhead,  but  she  did  not  raise 
her  sunshade. 


52  Schonbrunn 

Infected  by  the  emotion  pulsating  on  every  side,  her 
imagination  reverted  to  Napoleon,  less  as  a  man  than  as  some 
prodigious  event  daily  affecting  or  appearing  to  affect  tens 
of  thousands  of  lives  in  every  nation  of  Europe  and,  so  to 
speak,  throughout  the  world;  never  alone;  always  moving 
amid  armies,  thronged  theatres,  political  revolutions.  But 
effacing  this  impression  of  vague  masses  of  force  she  saw 
him  as  in  the  enthusiasm  of  her  girlhood  she  had  seen 
him  enter  Milan,  his  Hamlet-like  countenance  very  pale, 
mounted  on  a  black  charger.  She  contrasted  him  with 
Austrian  generals  or  with  Austrian  statesmen,  whose  char- 
acter and  private  idiosyncracies  were  known  to  her  from 
gossip  or  observation — Cobenzl,  Kaunitz,  Stadion,  Metter- 
nich,  Wittgenstein,  Ziethen,  Hiller,  Bellegarde,  even  Liech- 
tenstein and  the  Archduke. 

"No,  he  is  of  another  clay.  He  is  not  like  other  men  at 
all.  Or  is  it  my  stupidity?" 

Fragments  of  Rentzdorf's  talk  recurred  to  her.  Like 
Beethoven,  Schiller,  Goethe  and  other  German  artists  or  men 
of  letters,  Rentzdorf  had  been  profoundly  troubled  by  Na- 
poleon's personality.  Unlike  Wordsworth  in  England  and 
Beethoven  in  Germany  he  had  not  burst  into  denunciation 
when  the  consul  became  emperor. 

"Bonaparte  has  brought  back  to  the  world  the  secret  of 
heroism  that  was  lost  to  the  world, "  he  had  written  to  her 
from  Ratisbon,  and  he  had  quoted  Sarpedon's  reply  to  Glau- 
cus  as  at  once  the  most  heroic  verse  in  all  poetry,  and  the 
fittest  to  express  his  own  conception  of  Napoleon's  career. 
Right  or  wrong,  it  is  not  in  modern  times,  but  with  the  heroes 
of  the  Iliad  that  we  must  set  this  man;  the  essential,  imper- 
ishable part  of  him." 

A  deep  breath,  almost  like  a  sob,  startled  her.  Then  a 
single  voice,  a  woman's  in  the  crowd,  rang  out. 

"Yonder!  Yonder  he  is!  Mother  of  God,  how  beauti- 
ful!" 


The  Noon  Parade  53 

It  was  Napoleon. 

Toe,  with  a  convulsive  gesture,  grasped  Amalie's  hand. 

An  immense  shout  at  the  same  moment  rent  the  air 
sweeping  into  its  contagious  enthusiasm  even  the  Austrians 
— ' '  Vive  1'Empereur !  Vive  1'Empereur. " 

Neither  Toe  nor  Amalie  heard  it.  Both  sat  as  though 
walled  in  by  silence,  their  eyes  fixed  on  the  stairs. 

A  short  man  in  a  cocked  hat,  a  white  vest,  a  dark  green 
coat  on  which  a  solitary  star  glittered,  had  suddenly  ap- 
peared on  the  terrace.  He  did  not  pause  more  than  ten 
seconds,  then  began  hastily  to  descend  the  flight  of  eighteen 
steps  on  his  right,  the  flight  nearest  to  the  eastern  wing  of 
the  palace. 

Toe  turned  her  shining  eyes  first  on  Amalie  then  on  the 
old  Count. 

Napoleon  ?  That  man  who  was  like  an  earthquake,  could 
he  actually  be,  there  in  the  broad  sunlight,  not  more  than 
fifty  yards  from  where  she  sat? 

"He  should  have  his  head  bare  always,  like  the  busts  of 
the  Caesars,"  she  heard  Bolli  say  in  a  voice  that,  though 
scarcely  above  a  whisper,  sounded  distinct  as  a  bell. 
"  Neither  hat  nor  helmet  will  ever  become  that  brow. " 

Toe  studied  avidly  the  figure  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  the 
ungainly  hat,  the  creases  on  his  waistcoat,  the  spurs  which 
seemed  too  large  for  his  height ;  rivetted  her  glance  on  the 
greyish  pallor  of  the  countenance,  the  wide,  preoccupied 
forehead,  the  vitreous  brooding  gaze  that  appeared  to  take 
in  everything  yet  rested  nowhere. 

But  his  foot  was  now  in  the  stirrup,  and  awkwardly, 
though  rapidly,  he  shuffled  into  the  saddle. 

The  transformation  was  instantaneous. 

He  sat  motionless  for  several  seconds,  ten,  twenty,  or 
thirty,  as  though  he  waited  for  someone  who  did  not  come. 
An  expression  of  singular  melancholy  filled  the  eyes,  which 
now  appeared  blue — a  pale  but  definite  blue. 


54  Schonbrunn 

"He  is  thinking  of  Lannes. " 

The  words  seemed  to  have  been  spoken  in  Bolli's  neigh- 
bourhood rather  than  by  Belli  himself — so  fast  shut  were  his 
lips,  so  intent,  so  unmoving,  so  inexpressive  his  features 
when  Toe  flashed  round  on  him. 

"Ah,"  she  thought  to  herself  in  Polish,  "what  phantoms 
must  everywhere  attend  him !  Everywhere !  Everywhere ! 
Phantoms  of  vanished  armies,  dead  friends,  dead  compan- 
ions-in-arms,  marshals,  generals,  captains,  colonels,  the 
rank  and  file!  The  Man  of  Destiny?  It  is  Destiny  itself 
on  horseback  over  there." 

Napoleon's  brow  in  1809  had  still  its  impressive  quiet,  his 
glance  had  lost  none  of  its  authoritativeness ;  but  to  an 
impartial  scrutiny  he  carried  his  forty-one  years  badly;  his 
cheeks  were  puffy  and  dirty-grey  in  hue;  there  were  folds 
of  loose  flesh  in  his  neck  above  the  collar  of  his  coat;  the 
thickening  of  the  back  of  the  leg  against  the  saddle  was 
evident. 

Amalie  felt  Toe's  hand  jerk  her  own.  She  turned  to  meet 
a  curious  look  in  the  eyes  of  the  volatile  Slav. 

"C'est  b£te,  tout  cela,  n'est-ce  pas?  I  can  understand 
why  Madame  Walewska  wept  so  much  when  she  gave 
herself  to  him.  With  that  face  and  figure,  he  is  not  the 
lover  to  make  a  woman  forget  her  sins !  Certainly  he  is  not 
like  the  man  you  spoke  to  me  of  in  your  room — hein? " 

With  a  joyous,  airy  laugh  she  leaned  her  elbow  on  the 
side  of  the  carriage,  and  lifting  her  head  high  sat  half  angrily, 
half  contemptuously  surveying  the  conqueror  and  his  suite, 
every  man  of  whom  to  her  eyes  looked  a  "roturier,"  a 
"ranker." 

Was  it  to  see  this  that  she  had  that  morning  annoyed 
and  perhaps  estranged  Count  Johann  forever? 

Napoleon,  surrounded  by  his  glittering  suite,  had  ad- 
vanced to  the  first  line  of  troops. 

His  head,  Toe  said  critically,  was  too  large  for  so  diminu- 


The  Noon  Parade  55 

tive  a  body,  and  that  broad,  powerful  chest  suggested  a 
dwarf's  malignant  strength.  He  had  long  arms;  and  he 
sat  his  horse  as  though  with  those  long  arms  he  had  seized 
it  from  an  ambush  and,  springing  on  its  back,  now  crushed 
the  superb  brute  to  the  earth  by  his  super-human  weight 
or  cunning. 

"Comme  c'est  vilain!" 

On  Amalie,  meanwhile,  Napoleon  made  an  impression  of 
a  different  sort.  The  tragic,  mysterious  forces  behind  this 
man  affected  her. 

"Yes  even  in  the  saddle  he  looks  no  hero, "  she  admitted, 
her  gaze  following  the  white  horse  and  his  rider.  "He 
looks  even  vulgarly  aggressive;  and  when  he  walks  he  digs 
his  heels  into  the  ground  to  give  himself  height  or  assertive- 
ness.  He  does  not  walk;  he  struts. " 

Yet  was  not  Hildebrand,  she  asked  in  a  flash  of  recollec- 
tion,— in  the  single  authentic  description  which  has  come 
down  to  us — just  such  an  insignificant,  short,  thick-set 
fellow,  with  nothing  notable  except  the  blue,  piercing  eyes? 

"Yet  at  Canossa.    ..." 

At  Monza  she  had  breathed  in,  as  her  natural  air,  the 
history  of  the  Middle  Age.  She  knew  the  great  pontiffs 
Hildebrand,  Innocent,  Boniface,  Sixtus,  almost  as  friends; 
the  not  less  titanic  Ghibellines  their  antagonists ;  the  saints 
and  the  poets,  the  artists  and  the  scholars ;  beside  Napoleon 
they  all  seemed  lesser  men,  less  mysterious,  less  intricately 
and  variously  distinguished  and  set  apart. 

And  a  new  train  of  ideas  arose  to  confirm  this  impression. 
As  her  glance  passed  from  figure  to  figure  of  the  suite,  she  had 
seen  them  at  first  only  in  the  mass — the  sinewy  grace  of  the 
horses,  the  brilliant  uniforms,  the  plumes,  the  helmets,  the 
gilt  spurs,  the  white  and  scarlet,  the  orange,  blue  and  gold 
of  the  embroideries.  Now  she  took  in  personal  details. 
These  were  the  faces,  these  were  the  figures  of  remarkable 
men,  men  whose  names  were  spoken  with  admiration  in 


56  Schonbrunn 

every  capital  of  Europe.  Yet  merely  in  feature,  how  com- 
monplace they  one  and  all  appeared  beside  Napoleon! 
And  she  summoned  up  the  faces  of  the  absent  marshals — 
Masse"na,  Soult,  Ney,  Augereau,  Davout,  Murat.  Yes, 
remarkable  they  were;  great  they  might  be,  those  marshals 
and  generals,  absent  or  present;  but  again,  Bonaparte's 
greatness  was  of  another  order  than  theirs.  It  baffled  her; 
but  it  was  undeniable. 

"Ugh!  How  he  smells  of  eau  de  Cologne!"  Albertina 
said  in  her  clear-cut  but  affected  tones,  pressing  her  lace 
handkerchief  to  her  nostrils.  "  Did  you  notice  it  as  he  rode 
past?" 

"Yet  he  is  said  to  hate  violent  perfumes,"  Bolli  said 
reflectively. 

"He  does,"  Kessling  interposed  in  his  heavy  emphatic 
way.  And  to  the  delight  of  the  twins,  who  had  been  strictly 
brought  up  in  the  Maria  Theresa  tradition,  he  narrated  one 
of  the  riskiest  and  most  recent  of  anecdotes,  yet  very  much 
to  the  present  point — how  Bonaparte  last  November  had 
turned  a  Spanish  dancer  out  of  the  Escurial  at  midnight, 
because,  having  given  her  an  assignation,  she  had,  the  better 
to  captivate  her  imperial  admirer,  saturated  not  only  her 
wearing  apparel  but  her  skin  with  the  heady  perfumes  whose 
secret  the  Spanish  women  had  acquired  from  the  Saracens. 


in 


Bolli,  with  lowered  eyelids,  sat  examining  intently  a  small 
group  of  Viennese  citizens  who  on  foot  were  pressing  close 
about  the  Emperor.  These  men  and  women  were,  he  saw  at 
once,  citizens  of  the  middle  or  lower  class,  the  bearers  of  pe- 
titions. One  of  Napoleon's  staff  was  receiving,  the  petitions, 
handing  some  to  the  Emperor,  others  to  an  official  of  the 
household.  Amongst  the  petitioners  Bolli  noticed  a  young 
man,  apparently  a  student,  who,  when  Napoleon  appeared, 


The  Noon  Parade  57 

had  been  waiting  at  the  western  of  the  two  flights  of  outer 
stairs,  and,  on  Napoleon  descending  the  eastern  flight,  had 
run  round  rapidly  as  though  to  meet  him;  but  before  he 
could  reach  the  Emperor,  Napoleon  had  mounted,  and  sat 
on  horseback  surrounded  by  his  staff. 

Belli  was  interested  by  the  boy's  appearance,  by  his  youth 
and  fine  features,  and  by  the  suppressed  ardour  or  excite- 
ment in  his  bearing.  His  gestures  seemed  to  indicate  that 
he  was  expostulating  with  the  guards  and  that  he  was  refus- 
ing to  present  his  petition  in  the  usual  manner,  but  was 
insisting  upon  handing  it  to  the  Emperor  himself. 

At  that  moment  Napoleon  and  his  entire  suite,  amongst 
whom  Belli  recognized  Prince  Berthier,  the  due  de  Rovigo, 
General  Rapp,  Mouton,  and  the  fearless  but  effeminate 
grace  of  Saint-Croix,  moved  towards  the  troops  stationed 
in  the  remotest  part  of  the  quadrangle.  A  detachment  of 
cavalry  swinging  forward  at  the  same  time  made  a  screen 
which  momentarily  hid  from  sight  the  Emperor  and  those 
about  him. 

Bolli  saw  the  youthful  petitioner  no  longer,  for  his  atten- 
tion was  engrossed  by  the  dispute  which  had  arisen  amongst 
his  Viennese  friends  whether  they  should  get  out  of  their 
carriages  and  follow  Napoleon  on  foot,  or  go  forward  in  their 
carriages  as  far  as  the  guards  would  permit  them,  or  simply 
remain  where  they  were. 

"How  Austrian! "  Bolli  reflected.  "  My  God,  how  Aus- 
trian! O  my  country!" 

A  trivial  incident  determined  the  action  of  all.  Madame 
de  Bellegarde  and  her  party,  who  had  been  the  guests  of 
de  Bausset,  the  Emperor's  prefect  of  the  palace,  and  had 
been  standing  at  one  of  the  windows  of  Schonbrunn, 
now  came  forward  in  their  bright-coloured  costumes,  turned 
up  feathered  hats  and  floating  veils.  A  cloud  of  perfume 
came  with  them. 

"Ah,  Princess,  ah,  Countess!"  cried  one  of  them,  stop- 


58  Schonbrunn 

ping  beside  the  carriage  in  which  Toe  and  Amalie  were 
seated.  "Did  you  have  a  good  view?  He  looks  in  a  vile 
temper,  does  he  not?" 

"Varinsky  declares  that  he  has  been  abominably  rude  to 
Prince  John  of  Liechtenstein  and  has  sent  a  most  insulting 
note  to  our  dear  Emperor's  peace  proposals.  We  shall  have 
war.  " 

Amalie  knew  this  woman's  character,  but  sne  heard  the 
last  words  with  a  sudden  sickening  terror,  and  as  through  a 
thick  mist  she  heard  voices  and  fragments  of  the  ensuing 
dialogue. 

"Ugh!  the  Corsican  peasant!" 

"The  noble  Archduke  and  our  dear  Emperor.    ..." 

"If  the  fool  English  had  not  sat  down  to  rot  in  Wal- 
cheren.  ..." 

"Have  you  heard  M.  de  Metternich's  latest  mot?" 
said  another  voice:  "'I  was  born  to  be  the  enemy  of 
the  French  Revolution.  And  Napoleon  is  the  Revolution 


They  were  the  clear  ringing  tones  of  Madame  de  Belle- 
garde.  She  was  very  much  the  Field  Marshal's  wife, 
domineering  and  condescendingly  affable  by  turns,  and  to 
Freihoff's  irritated  confusion  she  now  addressed  to  him  a 
voluble  harangue  on  the  triumphs  of  Metternich,  the  miracu- 
lous young  diplomat  at  Stockholm,  and  above  all  at  Paris; 
his  dignified  retort  to  the  Corsican  when,  a  few  months 
ago,  the  latter,  seizing  him  by  the  collar  of  his  coat,  had 
demanded,  "What  then  does  your  master,  Francis  II., 
wish?"  "My  master  wishes  that  his  ambassador  should 
be  respected,"  —  the  brilliant  plans  he  had  formed  by 
which  Austria  should  become  the  temporary  ally  of  France; 
long  enough,  that  is  to  say,  for  this  atheistical,  gimcrack 
parody  of  an  empire  to  die  of  spontaneous  combustion,  — 
when,  Austria,  by  the  mere  pressure  of  events,  would  be 
the  solitary  first  power  left  standing,  and,  dominating 


The  Noon  Parade  59 

Europe,  for  Europe's  benefit,  would  bring  back  again  the 
great  days  of  Charles  V.  and  Maximilian. 

"Austria?     The  future  of  Austria? " 

It  was  an  inexhaustible  theme,  absorbing  enough  to  make 
these  men  and  women  forget  Napoleon  himself  and  discuss 
the  flimsiest  or  most  serious  theories.  Instantly  the  buzz 
of  conversation  became  louder.  Many  in  their  excitement 
came  down  from  their  carriages.  The  Viennese  power  of 
confusing  what  is  with  what  is  desired,  the  Slav  power  of 
mistaking  memories  for  hopes,  gave  ardour  to  their  words 
and  gestures. 

If  the  eye  of  an  observer  could  have  excluded  the  serried 
ranks  of  Napoleon's  legions,  and  taken  in  only  the  out- 
line of  the  sombre  distant  woods,  and  felt  only  the  stillness 
of  the  autumn  day,  he  might  have  imagined  that  this  bril- 
liantly attired  throng  were  no  more  the  natives  of  a  captive 
city  crowding  to  do  homage  to  a  victor's  greatness  or  a  vic- 
tor's pride,  but  members  of  a  free  society,  a  hunting  party, 
say,  such  as  one  sees  in  Watteau's  paintings,  halting  for 
the  noon-day  heat  to  pass. 

But  an  immense  shout  rent  the  air,  making  even  these 
dust-clogged  hearts  to  tremble  by  its  violence. 

"Vive  1'Empereur!    Vive  1'Empereur!" 

"What  is  the  matter  now?" 

They  looked  into  each  other's  faces.  Was  Napoleon  ha- 
ranguing the  troops  ?  Was  he  making  some  proclamation  ? 

Again  the  shout  was  repeated,  more  prolonged,  zigzag- 
ging along  the  lines. 

In  those  voices  Bolli,  at  least,  and  the  old  Count,  read  a 
heroism  or  a  fanaticism  against  which  Germany  was  still 
powerless. 

Then,  at  a  considerable  distance,  a  trumpet  rang  out,  a 
sound  that  seemed  the  very  spirit  of  war. 

"It  is  the  chasseurs  of  the  Guard,"  Bolli  said  to  the  old 
Count.  ' '  Yonder  they  come !  How  they  ride,  these  fellows ! " 


60  Schonbrunn 

Bolli,  tormented  by  his  own  thoughts,  had  not  looked  at 
the  riders  attentively;  but,  anticipating  the  question,  had 
answered,  as  he  imagined,  accurately  enough  to  satisfy  an 
old  man's  curiosity. 

The  Count  watched  the  horsemen.  A  light  rose  in  his 
dim  eyes.  War  was  once  more  the  only  game  fit  for  a  man, 
the  only  art  worthy  the  consecration  of  a  life-time,  and  for 
him  that  game  was  over,  and  the  season  of  that  consecration 
gone. 

"They  are  not  the  chasseurs,"  he  said  harshly,  scanning 
the  squadron  nearest  to  him.  "Who  are  they?  Ask  him, 
I  beg  of  you,  ask  him,"  he  said,  turning  to  Amalie,  and 
pointing  his  trembling  arm  in  the  direction  of  an  orderly 
who  was  riding  leisurely  past  with  an  off-duty  air.  Favrol 
and  Montesquiou  and  the  other  French  officers  had  fol- 
lowed the  Emperor  some  minutes  before. 

"Nansouty's  cuirassiers,  madame,"  the  orderly  an- 
swered. - 

"And  those  others?" 

"Durosnel  and  the  gth  Hussars,  escort  of  the  wounded 
returning  to  Znaim  and  Molk. " 

The  officer,  who  was  very  young,  spoke  with  emphasis 
and  naive  surprise,  unable  to  comprehend  that  any  man  or 
woman  of  any  nation  could  be  ignorant  of  such  names  as 
Nansouty  and  Durosnel. 

"Who  the  devil  cares  about  Nansouty's  cuirassiers  or 
Durosnel's  hussars? "  an  Austrian  muttered.  "  Meerveldt's 
Uhlans  or  Siegenthal's  Light  Horse  are  worth  a  dozen  of 
them." 

"Ah,  tiens!  See  yonder,"  Madame  de  Bellegarde  ex- 
claimed, not  liking  the  reference  to  Siegenthal,  her  husband's 
rival — ' '  the  dog !  What  an  ugly  mongrel ! ' ' 

A  mangy  cur,  with  his  ears  down,  was  trotting  stealthily 
along  the  front  of  the  palace ;  but  once  under  the  colonnade 
he  stopped,  as  if  considering,  and  then  bolted  at  right  angles 


The  Noon  Parade  61 

straight  towards  the  entrance.  The  guards  stationed  by  the 
obelisks  opened  the  gilt-spiked  iron  gates  at  once. 

Albertina  clapped  her  hands  and  laughed  joyously  at  their 
deference  to  the  unhappy-looking  cur. 

"What  does  it  mean?"  she  asked  eagerly.  "Whose  is 
the  dog?" 

"Bonaparte's  familiar,"  Kessling  answered  with  his 
boisterous  laugh,  "the  black  fiend  to  whom  he  has  sold  his 
soul." 

"It  is  Malbrouck,  madame, "  the  orderly  explained  to 
Toe's  silent  question.  Attracted  at  once  by  Toe's  vivacity 
and  the  sunlight  on  Amalie's  hair,  he  had  loitered  by  the 
carriage  and  with  a  half -boyish  awkwardness,  for  under  the 
fierce-looking  shako  it  was  a  boy's  face  that  smiled  out  on 
the  two  charming  women,  he  began  to  sketch  the  history  of 
the  most  famous  of  all  regimental  dogs. 

At  the  battle  of  Marengo,  nine  years  ago,  Malbrouck 
had  been  a  pup;  but  he  had  seen  every  later  campaign  ex- 
cept that  of  Jena.  He  had  had  his  first  bayonet  thrust  at 
Marengo  itself.  The  paw  of  his  right  foreleg  had  been 
smashed  by  a  bullet  at  Austerlitz,  and  this,  for  a  time,  had 
sickened  him  of  war.  At  Eylau,  however,  he  had  re- 
appeared, and  throughout  that  dreary  campaign  he  had 
passed  from  regiment  to  regiment,  accepting  a  kick  or  a 
blow  from  the  flat  of  a  sabre  as  a  hint  that  his  time  of  service 
with  the  cuirassiers  or  the  hussars  had  expired.  His  low- 
ered ears  merely  proved  that  he  had  recognised  in  the 
orderly  an  officer  of  a  regiment  which  he  had  quitted;  for 
during  the  past  ten  days  he  did  not  belong  to  the  cuirassiers 
but  to  the  dragoons  stationed  in  the  city.  Malbrouck  had, 
therefore,  no  right  to  be  at  Schonbrunn  that  morning,  and 
knew  it. 

Bolli  sat  listening  to  the  narrative.  A  crowd  of  ideas  and 
emotions  was  struggling  in  him — anger,  defeated  ambition, 
this  morbid,  ill-starred  passion  for  Lan-Lan,  a  vague  hope  for 


62  Schonbrunn 

the  future  of  Germany  and  contempt  for  that  hope  and  for 
all  hope,  the  German's  resentment  against  the  greatness  of 
France,  the  individual's  resentment  against  the  greatness 
of  Bonaparte.  Yet  where  in  Austria  could  he  ever  have 
found  the  road  to  that  dazzling  summit?  Luck — it  was 
Bonaparte's  luck ! 

Bolli  had  talent  enough  and  brain  enough  to  make  his 
envy  of  Bonaparte  not  ridiculous. 

"But  Austria  is  rotten,  rotten  through  and  through. 
Chemnitz  is  right.  She  must  sink  as  Venice  has  sunk  if 
Germany  is  ever  to  arise.  Yes,  by  God,  we  are  degener- 
ates; to  us  there  is  no  meaning  anywhere;  but  at  least  we 
are  nearer  the  height  of  things  than  these  demi-devil  barrack- 
room  swaggerers  of  Bonaparte!" 

IV 

Napoleon,  meanwhile,  had  reviewed  his  grenadiers  and 
addressed  a  brief  congratulation  to  a  detachment  of  sap- 
pers for  their  completion  of  the  tete  du  pont  at  Krems. 
His  anger,  which  ought  to  have  been  terrible,  had,  to  the 
surprise  of  his  staff,  not  fallen  on  the  laggard  3ist. 

As  he  now  rode  slowly  towards  the  western  gate  his  cloudy 
mien  was  very  noticeable. 

A  detachment  of  the  wounded,  all  belonging  to  the  old 
guard  and  still  fit  for  service,  had  been  drawn  up  four  deep 
in  the  shadow  of  the  houses  and  some  fine  trees.  They 
stood,  this  mournful  band,  silent,  resigned  or  morose.  The 
faces  of  many  of  them  had  been  tanned  by  the  suns  of  many 
climes,  Italy,  Egypt,  Germany,  Spain,  Poland,  Austria;  the 
faces  of  others  were  fresh  and  still  youthful,  grave  or  lighted 
up  by  a  reckless  and  ruthless  gaiety,  exempt  from  joy. 
No  calumny,  scarcely  disaster  itself,  had  power  to  darken 
the  exultancy,  the  plenitude  of  life,  which  possessed  them 
looking  once  more  on  him. 

These  were  Bonaparte's  "wolves"  —  attached  to  him  by 


The  Noon  Parade  63 

one  of  the  most  complex  and  singular  sympathies  known  in 
the  annals  of  war. 

Historians  of  Napoleon  drag  in  Attila  or  compare  the 
allegiance  of  these  desperate  yet  disciplined  bands  to  the 
attachment  which  bound  his  veterans  to  Hannibal,  or  his 
mercenaries  to  Wallenstein.  M.  Taine  has  even  carica- 
tured the  real  character  of  the  French  armies  by  comparing 
them  with  the  "Free  Companies"  of  the  Middle  Age,  and 
by  comparing  Bonaparte  himself  with  a  Francesco  Sforza 
or  a  Castruccio  Castracani.  There  was,  indeed,  a  touch  of 
the  Hun  in  the  armies  of  the  Empire;  and  in  Bonaparte 
himself  there  was  a  touch  of  Attila.  But  like  the  ruins  of  a 
sunset  the  ruins  of  a  great  ideal  coloured  all  the  actions  of 
those  armies.  Even  their  violence  and  their  lawlessness  were 
a  challenge  to  the  inert  nations  —  "Endure  our  arrogance 
or  find  within  yourselves  the  motives  to  a  higher  arrogance 
or  a  greater  heroism.  Liberty?  Yes,  we  idolized  it  once. 
But  whilst  we  fought  for  your  liberty,  our  harvests  rotted  in 
the  fields.  Our  enemies  reaped  their  harvests  and  ours,  and 
you  did  nothing.  Liberty,  we  know  now,  is  an  empty  name; 
but  the  greatness  of  man — that  is  not  yet  a  dream?  Glory 
and  plunder,  a  forced  kiss  or  a  forced  till,  then  a  soul 
panted  out  on  the  sod — these  are  life's  ultimate  essence?" 

These  were  the  questions  that  the  "wolves"  glared  at 
their  Emperor,  once  in  heroic  confidence,  to-day  in  Vienna 
searchingly,  doubtingly. 

And  in  silence  also  Bonaparte  answered — "There  is  in 
life  no  other  greatness !  The  path  to  glory  to  him  who  can 
tread  it !  That  is  my  word  to  you. " 

"Vivel'Empereur  !" 

It  was  to  the  new  Mohammed  the  response  of  his  faithful ; 
not  with  the  droning  accent  of  congregations  in  mosque  or 
cathedral,  but  shouted  out  clear  in  laughter  and  joy  like  the 
ringing  of  swords. 

Greatened  by  his  purpose  and  his  presence  they  mut- 


64  Schonbrunn 

tered  the  creed  to  themselves  and  to  each  other — march 
ing,  marching;  knowing  in  life  four  things  only,  the  march 
the  bloody  hailstorm  of  bullets,  the  bivouac,  the  red  dawn 
the  day  after. 

Bonaparte's  own  contempt  for  "  ideologues  "  was  in  har- 
mony with  the  sentiment  of  his  armies.  He  was  a  sensu- 
alist and  a  materialist;  so  were  his  officers;  so  were  the 
men.  He  was  in  his  heart  of  hearts  an  "atheist  ";  but  it 
was  challengingly.  He  refused  his  reverence  to  the  stupid 
gods  created  by  stupid  men.  And  who  shall  condemn 
him?  He  denied  Jesus  and  the  Jahve  of  Isaiah.  Was  he 
to  kneel  before  the  demi-deity  of  Hegel  or  La  ReVelli£re- 
Le*peaux?  What  vapid  futilities,  what  verbal  juggleries  in 
those  men  whom  he  despised!  Hegel,  Kant,  Schleier- 
macher,  Schelling — did  not  such  names  justify  his  con- 
tempt for  ideologues  and  professors  ? 

To  the  eyes  of  an  English  observer  in  this  very  year, 
1809,  Bonaparte's  Guard  looked,  he  tells  us,  as  though 
every  man  of  it  either  had  been  or  ought  to  be  at  the  gal- 
leys. "An  army  of  convicts!"  Yet,  when  in  1816  this 
same  observer  attempted  to  throw  upon  a  huge  canvas 
the  last  charge  of  that  Guard  at  Waterloo,  he  could  find 
no  better  inspiration  to  aid  him  in  conjuring  up  those  war- 
worn countenances  than  just  to  stand  for  several  minutes 
or  for  several  hours  in  front  of  the  portraits  of — Horatio, 
Lord  Nelson!  Sentimentality;  naivete';  intrepidity;  ex- 
haustless  bravourel 


"You  have  seventeen  wounds  and  have  not  got  the 
cross?"  Napoleon  said  in  an  indefinable  accent  to  one  of 
these  "braves." 

"Yes,  sire,  I  have  the  cross." 

' '  Comment  ?    Where  is  it  ? " 


The  Noon  Parade  65 

The  grenadier,  puzzled,  looked  at  his  breast. 

The  cross  was  hidden  by  the  lapel  of  his  coat. 

Napoleon  passed  on,  addressing  here  a  question,  there  a 
jest,  till  he  reached  the  last  man  on  the  left.  Then  he  cast 
his  eyes  back  over  the  ranks,  oddly  reluctant  that  morning 
to  leave  his  "faithful." 

Other  things  were  shams ;  here  at  least  amongst  his  gren- 
adiers was  reality. 

"We  shall  meet  again,  mes  enfants. " 

"  Vi  ve  1 '  Empereur ! ' ' 

It  was  the  assignation  for  a  battlefield  bloodier  than 
Aspern-Essling  or  Wagram. 

He  was  about  to  remount  his  horse.  He  had  even  given 
a  command  to  the  colonel  on  duty  to  change  the  direction 
of  the  line  so  that  the  grenadiers  might  once  more  defile 
before  him,  when  a  stir,  an  altercation  and  a  rapid  inter- 
change of  question  and  answer  on  his  right  made  him  check 
his  impatient  horse  in  order  to  discover  the  cause  of  the 
bustle.  He  saw,  not  fifteen  feet  away,  Berthier  dashing  up 
to  a  knot  of  officers  composed  of  Rapp,  Savary,  and  three 
or  four  of  his  own  or  Berthier's  suite.  He  noticed  at  the 
same  moment,  in  the  midst  of  this  group,  a  slim  figure 
which,  though  dressed  in  the  ordinary  blue  coat  and  high 
white  neck-band  of  the  period,  seemed  that  of  a  boy  of  six- 
teen or  seventeen.  He  had  a  rapt,  uplifted  look,  and  held 
in  his  hand  stretched  high  above  his  head  a  sheet  of  paper. 
He  was  gesticulating  violently,  and  crying  out  in  a  language 
which  Bonaparte  took  to  be  German. 

The  student — if  he  were  a  student — had  evidently,  Na- 
poleon thought,  wished  to  present  his  petition  whilst  he 
was  on  foot.  But  why? 

"One  more  importunate  petitioner,"  he  reflected  with 
a  shrug.  "Oh  these  Germans!"  And  he  turned  aside 
indifferently. 

But  there  was  a  sudden  gleam  of  steel.     He  had  not  the 

5 


66  Schonbrunn 

opportunity  to  distinguish  whether  the  gleam  came  from 
Rapp's  sword  or  from  some  other  cause;  for  at  that  moment, 
an  abrupt  and  mournful  roll  of  the  drum  announced  a  har- 
rowing and  piteous  spectacle  on  his  left. 

It  was  a  strange  band  that,  slowly  debouching  from  be- 
hind Schonbrunn,  entered  by  the  western  gate  and  drew  up 
before  their  Cassar.  It  was  the  wounded  of  the  Young  and 
of  the  Old  Guard,  incurably  wounded  or  unfit  any  longer  for 
war.  Three  days  ago  they  had  been  released  from  hospital  or 
from  prison.  There  they  now  stood,  riveting  his  sight,  a  mel- 
ancholy apparition.  They  were  of  all  arms ;  some  fearfully 
maimed,  yet  erect  and  resolute-looking;  some  dejected; 
some  sullen  and  defiant ;  some  reckless  or  laughing.  Some 
shouted  "  Vive  1'Empereur  " ;  others  in  silence  looked  their 
rage  on  the  man  who  had  brought  them  to  this.  There  were 
faces  still  bandaged;  faces  which  showed  sabre-slashes  or 
bayonet-thrusts  that  had  partially  gangrened;  bodies  am- 
putated hideously.  Some  came  from  the  great  abbey  at 
Molk;  some  had  marched  from  Znaim  or  from  Krems  to 
be  present  at  this  day's  parade. 

There  they  now  stood,  waiting,  prepared  for  their  fare- 
well to  war  and  to  him. 

"  Mes  enfants  .  .  .  "  he  answered  to  another  feeble  shout 
"Vivel'Empereur!"  "Mes  enfants.  ..." 

Dismounting,  he  went  up  to  the  men  thus  maimed  or 
afflicted  for  him  or  for  the  idea  which  he  incarnated.  He  did 
not  now  content  himself  with  a  survey ;  he  was  seeing  them 
for  the  last  time  on  earth;  he  was  the  brother  or  the  father 
taking  an  eternal  farewell  of  his  children. 

"Mes  enfants.   ..." 

His  glittering  spangled  escort  stood  and  watched. 

This  was  a  moment  in  which  Bonaparte  was  supreme. 
To  see  him  thus  was  to  see  the  living  refutation  of  the  calum- 
nies of  Jaffa. 

He  went  in  and  out  amongst  the  ranks.     He  spoke  to  this 


The  Noon  Parade  67 

man;  spoke  to  that.  His  eyes  now  darkened  with  pain,  now 
kindled  with  approval  or  encouragement;  and  his  strident 
voice,  with  its  Corsican  accent,  softening  strangely,  he 
looked  at  their  scars,  touched  the  amputated  stump  of  an 
arm  or  of  a  hand ;  he  permitted  a  carabineer,  three  of  whose 
fingers  had  been  blown  off  as  he  wrenched  aside  the  muzzle 
of  a  rifle,  to  place  his  own  fingers  in  his  mouth  where  the 
under  jaw  had  been  removed;  and  long  he  stood  silent  beside 
a  chasseur,  nothing  of  whose  blackened  face  seemed  living 
except  the  fierce  sadness  in  the  eyes.  He  had  been  one  of 
the  most  powerful  men  in  Marmont's  corps,  over  six  feet  in 
height,  full  of  the  joy  of  life  and  vigorous  youth.  From 
others  Napoleon  seemed  to  give  and  to  receive  the  most 
intimate  or  tender  confidences,  long  confidences  though  they 
lasted  but  a  second,  words  and  looks  that  made  it  a  light 
thing  for  these  men  to  march  to  the  ends  of  Europe,  and, 
under  his  eye  or  far  from  it.  fight  for  him,  suffer  for  him, 
hunger,  thirst,  fatigue,  heat,  snow,  and  die  for  him. 


CHAPTER  III 
NAPOLEON'S  RIDE 


NAPOLEON  heard  the  last  "Vive  1'Empereur,"  the  last 
bugles  and  buoyant  rat-a-tat-tat  of  the  drums  as  the 
troops  marched  back  to  their  cantonments  in  the  city  itself 
or  on  the  slopes  above  Nussdorf,  or  to  the  gardens,  or  at 
Hetzing  and  Ebersdorf . 

The  angry  anxiety  and  disquieting  premonitions  of  the 
morning,  banished  by  the  sight  of  his  grenadiers,  had  re- 
turned. But  Corsican  and  superstitious  as  he  was,  he  could 
find  no  cause  for  these  presentiments. 

"Bah,  I  shall  go  for  a  ride.  The  open  sky  will  clear  my 
brain.  That  stuffy  palace  is  full  of  stoves,  haunted  by  bats 
and  foul  deeds." 

He  wheeled  his  horse,  which  curveted  with  expectancy. 

At  that  moment  Berthier  approached  as  though  to  com- 
municate to  the  Emperor  a  matter  of  importance.  Napo- 
leon looked  at  him  dubiously.  Never  had  Berthier's  face — 
the  gosling  whom  he  had  made  an  eagle — seemed  more 
vapid,  his  short  thick-set  figure  more  wooden.  His  cheeks 
were  powdered,  but  that  did  not  disguise  his  age.  His 
eyes  had  the  vitreous  unpleasant  lustre  which  eyes  that 
move  in  a  powdered  face  always  have. 

"Not  now!" 

Napoleon  spoke  curtly,  and  gave  way  to  the  strain  of  the 
Arab  towards  the  obelisks  and  the  huge  bronze  gates. 

68 


Napoleon's  Ride  69 

What  could  Berthier  have  to  say?  His  couriers  had  not 
arrived  from  Spain.  No  message  from  Altenburg  or  Totis, 
where  the  Emperor  Francis  now  resided,  was  possible. 
All  else  could  wait. 

Signing  to  his  escort,  Napoleon,  crossing  the  dirty  stream 
that  gives  Vienna  its  name,  took  the  northerly  road.  Once 
in  the  open  country  he  struck  a  little  to  the  left  towards 
the  heights  of  the  Wiener  Wald. 

Above  him  and  around  him  was  the  autumn  stillness. 
Nature  in  the  woods  and  on  the  hills  and  the  far  outstretched 
plains  was  accomplishing  the  vast  processional  changes  of 
her  year,  and  beside  that  process  even  the  history  of  this 
region,  receding  beyond  the  Middle  Age  and  the  Roman 
times  into  a  dim  and  half-fabulous  past,  appeared  to  his 
brooding  eye  brief  as  the  glory  of  the  leaves. 

"Un  songe  leger  qui  se  dissipe, "  he  said,  repeating  one  of 
his  commonplaces.  A  dream  that  passes  life  and  man's 
annals. 

His  thoughts  turned  to  that  morning's  work.  He  con- 
templated it  now  with  satisfaction,  now  with  anxiety  and 
discontent.  He  had  made  a  concession  to  Austria.  He  had 
reduced  her  indemnity  from  a  hundred  millions  to  eighty 
millions;  but  except  in  this  point  he  had  not  abated  by  a  jot 
his  original  demands.  Bavaria,  his  ally,  would  henceforth 
dominate  the  eastern  slopes  of  the  Hansruck.  The  left 
bank  of  the  Traun  was  compromised.  The  ulcer  in  the 
Tyrol  would  at  length  be  scarified.  Every  acre  he  de- 
manded in  Carinthia,  Carniola,  Fiume,  and  Trieste  was  to 
be  surrendered.  Illyria  would  start  from  the  tomb  in 
which  she  had  lain  for  centuries.  What  might  not  that  new 
nation  effect?  The  pennons  of  six  thousand  ships  already 
floated  in  the  harbours  of  Trieste.  Trieste  was  the  pre- 
destined rival  of  Venice.  Across  Illyria  he  would  drive  a 
high-road  to  the  very  heart  of  the  Ottoman  empire.  It  was 
the  subjugation  of  Europe. 


70  Schonbrunn 

"And it  is  time." 

Every  additional  day  at  Schonbrunn  lowered  his  prestige, 
and  gave  colour  to  the  damning  rumours  circulated  by  the 
English  press. 

He  felt  the  edge  of  his  hat  tight  on  his  forehead.  He 
shifted  it  a  little,  and  rode  on. 

Well,  if  it  did  mean  war,  he  resumed,  it  would  be  a  zest 
to  inflict  upon  Austria  a  more  crushing  defeat  than  Wagram. 

"And  afterwards?" 

He  would  certainly  dethrone  Francis  II.  That  perjured 
despot  was  no  longer  fit  to  reign.  Indemnifying  the  Czar 
in  Poland  or  in  the  Danubian  principalities,  he  would  place 
on  the  throne  of  the  Habsburgs  a  subject-king,  Davout 
perhaps,  or  the  Archduke  Charles,  or  ... 

"But  they  will  accept  this  morning's  offer.  I  read  it  on 
Liechtenstein's  face." 

"Your  Emperor  must  accept  this  or  sacrifice  the  lives  of  a 
hundred  thousand  men, "  he  had  said  to  the  plenipotentia- 
ries as  the  clock  struck  eleven,  and  getting  up  he  had  stood 
with  folded  arms  under  the  portrait  of  Charles  V.  "You 
are  soldiers,  not  diplomats,  both  of  you.  I  too  am  a  sol- 
dier. We  understand  each  other.  We  know  what  war 
means,  you  and  I.  It  is  the  scourge  of  the  human  race." 

He  had  not  uttered  the  words  in  a  voice  of  menace,  but 
in  a  voice  of  camaraderie,  dejected  a  little  yet  perfectly 
quiet  and  resolute.  He  had  conducted  each  interview  in 
that  manner,  as  a  soldier  conferring  with  soldiers,  men  who 
act,  disdaining  the  fatuities  of  men  who  talk,  diplomatists 
and  "avocats. "  Earlier  in  the  morning,  taking  Count 
Bubna  aside,  he  had  expostulated  with  him  on  his  fidelity 
to  Austria.  He  had  enlarged  upon  the  history  of  Bo- 
hemia, the  Count's  native  country.  He  had  compas- 
sionated her  wrongs  from  Ottocar  to  Podiebrad,  and  from 
Podiebrad  to  the  Winter  King.  And  who  had  inflicted 
those  wrongs?  Who,  after  the  White  Mountain,  had  stabbed 


Napoleon's  Ride  71 

Bohemia  in  the  back,  leaving  her  a  corpse  among  the 
nations,  a  people  without  a  language,  without  a  religion, 
trod  upon,  spat  upon,  refused  even  the  memory  of  her 
greatness?  Who  but  a  Habsburg,  the  Styrian  Ferdinand? 

"And  is  it  you,  you,  a  Bohemian,  who  now  come  to  me  as 
the  envoy  of  a  Habsburg,  you  who  plead  for  Francis  II.,  you 
who,  if  you  chose,  might  see  in  me  your  deliverer,  the  re- 
storer of  Bohemia's  honour  and  the  regenerator  of  her  an- 
cient glories?  I  can  give  your  country  a  place  amongst  the 
nations.  Austria  never  will. " 

To  Prince  John  of  Liechtenstein,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
had  appealed  as  one  great  strategist  speaking  to  another — 
the  emperor  of  battles  addressing  a  neglected  great  soldier. 

"If  I  had  had  you  at  Eckmuhl,"  he  had  said,  "I  should 
not  have  left  you  in  the  lurch.  Was  the  Archduke  jealous 
of  your  horsemen?  On  the  day  of  battle  a  true  general 
treasures  each  talent,  even  that  of  a  rival.  I  created  three 
marshals  after  Wagram.  What  honour  have  you  received? 
Come,  tell  me, "  he  had  said  taking  him  by  the  ear.  "I  do 
not  see  the  Grand  Cross  of  Maria  Theresa  on  your  breast. 
Have  you  left  it  at  Totis?" 

And  now  he  had  said  his  last  word,  made  his  last  conces- 
sion. The  rest  he  would  leave  to  fate — and  Champagny! 

He  laughed  at  the  sudden  sarcasm  and  touched  Solyman 
with  the  spur.  For  Champagny  was  a  nonentity. 

In  the  decision  itself,  a  decision  which  would  affect  the 
destiny  of  nations  and  the  lives  of  tens  of  thousands  of  men, 
he  felt  a  kind  of  exhilaration.  His  sense  of  power  became 
intoxicatingly  vivid. 


Rapid  motion  in  the  open  air  always  quickened  Bona- 
parte's ideas.  Since  giving  up  the  game  of  barres  as  unsuit- 
able for  a  man  of  forty  and  an  emperor,  riding  had  become 


72  Schonbrunn 

his  only  form  of  exercise.  Fencing  he  had  never  loved,  and 
he  was  no  sportsman.  Whether  at  Fontainebleau  or  Mal- 
maison  the  chase  had  never  afforded  him  an  hour's  heart- 
felt pleasure — unless  perhaps  the  malicious  pleasure  of 
disconcerting  by  his  erratic  course  the  seriousness  of  Berthier 
as  "Grand  Veneur. "  But  his  joy  in  the  open  air,  riding 
or  driving,  had  increased,  not  diminished,  with  the  years. 
The  firmament  had  always  been  the  roof  of  his  real  study. 
His  brain  became  desiccated  in  a  room ;  but  under  the  azure 
canopy  thoughts  crowded  in  on  him  in  swarms,  nebulous 
sketches  became  vast  and  precise  designs.  What  a  fool 
Debret  was,  he  abruptly  reflected,  to  paint  him  in  a  gilded 
salon  seated  by  a  table  loaded  with  books  and  maps. 

"As  if  I  were  a  Regent  de  College  like  that  cuistre 
Necker!" 

He  rode  on. 

Over  a  tuft  of  pines  crowning  the  heather-clad  knoll  on 
his  left  the  rooks  were  flying.  The  crowing  of  a  cock  shrilled 
up  into  the  afternoon  stillness,  but  the  farm  was  lost  in  the 
mist-veiled  distances.  In  a  neglected  field,  rushes  and  a 
patch  of  flea-bane  rose  beside  the  rank  grass.  Half  a  mile 
further  on  a  swine-herd  crossed  his  path,  slouching  past  with 
his  right  elbow  resting  on  his  horn  which  was  slung  from  his 
shoulder  by  a  dirty  cord.  Napoleon  looked  at  the  peasant. 
His  face  was  seamed  and  so  battered  by  weather,  hard  life 
and  cares,  that  it  had  almost  lost  its  human  expression,  and 
he  made  no  sign  of  recognition  either  of  the  Emperor  or  of 
his  glittering  suite. 

Why  should  he?  The  bodies  of  his  two  sons,  killed,  one 
at  Aspern  in  May,  the  other  at  Enzersdorf  in  July,  lay 
under  the  heath  of  the  Marchfeld,  and  the  husband  of  his 
only  daughter,  pressed  for  the  army  of  the  Archduke  John, 
had  never  returned  from  Poland.  No  man  knew  whether 
he  were  dead  or  wounded  or  a  prisoner  of  war  in  some 
Russian  shamble. 


Napoleon's  Ride  73 

"There  goes  a  villain  I  would  rather  meet  here  than  in 
the  forest  by  night,"  Napoleon  heard  one  of  his  cortege 
remark.  He  recognised  the  accent  of  Montesquieu.  It 
was  the  true  Versailles  accent  which  contrasted  with  that  of 
Lannes,  Augereau,  Ney,  as  well  as  with  his  own.  Davout 
had  a  touch  of  it;  so  had  Berthier. 

Napoleon  rode  on  with  a  slack  rein,  his  horse's  head 
drooping. 

Memory  and  imagination  alike  were  now  awake,  and  he 
ranged  the  past,  the  present  —  the  campaign  against  the 
English  in  Belgium,  the  campaign  in  Spain,  the  suspicious 
pourparlers  between  Berlin  and  Vienna,  Vienna  and  Peters- 
burg— darting  thence  into  the  future  where  in  the  East  he 
felt  looming  the  gigantic  war,  the  climax  of  all  his  wars. 

It  was  his  life-purpose,  grandiose  or  great,  outlined  long 
ago,  abandoned  but  never  forgotten,  luring  him  still. 

"The  East — there  is  the  battle-ground  of  the  future.  A 
greater  Pharsalia — a  greater  conflict  than  that  of  Caesar 
and  of  Pompey  must  be  fought  out  there!" 

But  there  too  was  England;  and  there  too  was  Russia. 
Already  the  Czar,  his  smooth  ally,  was  intriguing  with 
Persia  against  France ;  his  Cossacks  might  at  this  hour  be 
marching  on  Stamboul. 

"What  profit  have  I  derived  from  Selim's  murder?  Fate 
has  played  the  Czar's  game." 

At  the  name  of  Persia,  Bonaparte's  imagination,  enmeshed 
in  the  romance  of  the  world's  past,  Cyrus  and  Alexander, 
the  romance  of  the  world's  future,  which  had  disappeared 
at  Acre  only  to  rise  again  at  Austerlitz,  now  lured  him 
in  thought  upon  thought.  Egypt,  Persia,  India,  the  oldest 
civilisations  of  the  world,  must,  with  France,  be  made  the 
four  centres,  the  four  great  lamps  of  culture,  of  religion — 
Christ,  Osiris,  Zoroaster,  Brahma.  What  a  vision — yes, 
but  what  a  plan  also  and  what  a  goal!  What  a  goal  clean 
and  hard  to  strive  towards!  Philosophy  was  sterile. 


74  Schonbrunn 

Whoever  was  right,  the  ideologues  were  always  wrong, — 
Kant,  Fichte  and  the  Jena  coteries  of  whom  he  had  heard  so 
much  at  Erfurt.  Religion,  on  the  contrary,  was  life  itself, 
and  its  perennial  lamp  kept  alive  by  his  genius  and  his  army 
of  priests,  who  could  tell  what  new  thing  might  not  in  the 
future  decades  or  the  future  centuries  arise!  Paris,  Mem- 
phis, Delhi  and  Ispahan.  .  .  . 

A  loud  laugh  interrupted  his  climbing  phantasies.  He 
looked  behind  him.  Absorbed  in  musing,  his  slackened 
pace  had  brought  him  close  to  his  escort.  Some  of  the 
horses,  despite  their  riders'  efforts,  were  even  struggling  to 
get  in  front  of  the  Arab. 

Napoleon  touched  the  grey  and  put  a  wider  gap  than 
before  between  himself  and  his  escort.  He  had  in  those 
minutes  experienced  one  of  his  best  and  highest  moods — 
the  consciousness  of  solitary  power,  and  with  this  the  per- 
ception of  a  theatre  for  its  exercise,  spectral  but  limitlessly 
vast.  A  harmony  had  been  set  up  in  all  his  being,  evanes- 
cent but  most  poignant.  Now  by  that  laugh  it  was  shat- 
tered. The  proximity  even  of  his  guard  that  afternoon, 
their  voices  and  their  faces,  infected  the  air,  dragging  back 
to  earth  his  thought  as  it  soared. 

"What  makes  men  laugh?"   .    .    . 

' '  If  Lannes  had  but  lived !  In  him  I  had  a  man  who  could 
answer  when  I  spoke  to  him,  a  mind  that  could  understand. 
But  these  others — they  are  traitors  or  egoists,  imbeciles  or 
valets.  Lannes — eh  bien,  to  each  man  his  fated  hour." 

His  mind  went  back  to  Aspern  and  the  evening  on  which 
Lannes  had  received  his  fatal  wound.  He  saw  in  imagina- 
tion the  swollen  Danube,  brown  and  swift,  the  plunging 
trees,  and,  under  a  storm-racked  sky,  the  ditch  on  the  edge 
of  which  Lannes,  tired  with  the  long  day's  battle,  was  rest- 
ing, his  legs  crossed,  his  head  on  his  hand,  grieving  himself 
for  the  death  of  a  comrade,  General  Pouzet,  whom,  mortally 
wounded,  he  had  seen  carried  past  wrapped  in  a  cloak. 


Napoleon's  Ride  75 

When  lo!  humming  through  the  evening  air,  comes  a  spent 
bullet,  shattering  both  his  knees. 

"The  hazard  in  things, "  Napoleon  reflected,  "the  hazard 
in  things !  He  escaped  the  sharp-shooters  of  Saragossa  and 
the  storming  of  Ratisbon,  and  a  spent  bullet  finds  him  at 
Aspern!" 

And  with  a  touch  of  the  fatalism  and  the  fight  against 
fatalism  so  strong  in  the  Napoleonic  ethics,  he  pressed  still 
further  his  scrutiny  of  the  inscrutable.  In  the  consultation 
of  physicians,  if  Larrey's  decision  to  amputate  had  not  been 
carried  out,  would  Lannes  have  recovered?  Was  that  de- 
cision wise?  Was  it  even  sincerely  given,  or,  like  his  mar- 
shals, were  his  surgeons  too  the  slaves  of  jealousy,  and  was 
Larrey's  judgment  warped  by  the  wish  to  differ  from  Yvan? 

"Bah,  all  is  chance  and  all  is  purpose,  all  is  accident  and 
all  is  intention!" 

in 

Napoleon's  grief  for  Lannes  had  been  sincere,  as  sincere 
as  any  emotion  that  he  had  felt  since  Desaix  or  Muiron 
fell.  He  had  thought  him  irreplaceable;  but  in  an  hour  his 
place  was  filled  and  not  a  day  had  passed  in  which  he  had 
not  felt  some  moment  of  gratification  because  Lannes  was 
not  there. 

"Yes;  he  was  too  frank,  too  sudden  and  violent  in  opposi- 
tion. He  was  vain,  very  touchy;  at  Ratisbon  he  had  drawn 
his  sword  on  Bessieres,  Massena  had  to  part  them.  .  .  . 
Did  Charlemagne's  wit  detect  some  profit  even  in  the  death 
of  Roland?  But  this  is  the  curse  which  clings  to  power. 
In  the  death  of  the  best-loved  friend  we  welcome  the  death 
of  a  rival,  and  I  have  known  many  such  deaths. " 

Their  names  and  faces  rose,  shadows  in  the  clouds — 
Muiron  at  Arcola,  the  best  remembered,  the  most  regretted 
of  all;  Desaix  at  Marengo  just  when  victory  would  have 
made  him  most  troublesome;  Kleber  in  Egypt  just  when  his 


76  Schonbrunn 

return  would  have  been  most  embarrassing ;  and  now  Lannes 
just  when  his  frankness  was  becoming  too  frank. 

"But  Bernadotte  will  live  on,  and  Fouche;  no  spent  bullet 
or  friendly  shell  will  rid  me  of  these.  War?  The  evils  oi 
war?  I  have  seen  as  much  hate  in  David's  studio  or  in 
Tronchet's  library  as  in  my  court  or  cabinet. " 

Napoleon  from  a  very  early  period,  from  a  date  much 
anterior  to  his  Letter  to  Buttafuoco,  had  read  and  pondered 
what  might  be  named  the  pathology  of  the  human  mind. 
He  had  not  read  the  De  I' Esprit  of  Helvetius;  but  he  had 
rediscovered  for  himself  and  made  his  own  several  of  that 
thinker's  positions.  Already  at  eight  and  twenty  he  had 
come  to  Hamlet's  maxim  that  "There's  nothing  either  good 
or  bad  but  thinking  makes  it  so."  Everywhere,  in  death 
as  in  life,  one  dark  purpose  works  to  its  end. 

A  swerve  of  his  horse,  which  had  set  its  foot  on  a  snapping 
branch,  startled  Bonaparte  from  his  reverie.  He  looked 
around,  and  as  he  gazed  the  beauty  of  the  scene  insensibly 
mastered  him.  He  drew  up  on  a  gentle  eminence. 

"C'est  beau!"  he  said  to  Rustum  after  some  minutes 
of  contemplation.  The  handsome  young  Mameluke,  who 
alone  of  his  escort  had  ventured  to  approach,  rolled  his  jet 
eyes  listlessly  round  the  horizon,  but  said  nothing. 

The  scene  which  Napoleon  surveyed  was  indeed  one  of  the 
fairest  and  most  surprising  in  Austria.  On  his  left,  rising 
like  an  immense  and  noble  amphitheatre,  the  wood-clad 
heights  known  as  the  Wiener  Wald,  robed  in  the  melan- 
choly glories  of  October.  On  his  right,  a  mile  and  a  half 
away,  draped  in  a  golden  haze,  the  myriad  roofs  and  gables, 
spires  and  domes  of  the  city  clustering  around  the  great 
cathedral  of  St.  Stephen's,  whose  spire  in  reckless  slender- 
ness  rose  over  all  as  though  it  would  scale  the  heavens. 
Northward,  full  in  front,  in  a  gentle  depression,  lay  the 
village  of  Heiligenstadt,  its  white  walls  and  red-tiled  roofs 
like  islets  in  the  rolling  sea  of  orchards  and  vineyards, 


Napoleon's  Ride  77 

meadows  and  tufts  of  trees,  through  which  a  brook  flow  d 
languidly  in  sparkling  or  shadowed  windings. 

But  Napoleon  in  mid-life  had  little  real  love  for  the  beauty 
or  poetry  of  Nature.  To  him  a  landscape  was  now  the 
theatre  for  the  evolution  of  armies.  The  pastoral  scene  in 
front,  amid  whose  thickets  and  streams,  the  haunt  in  sum- 
mer of  nightingales,  Beethoven  in  those  very  years  had 
passed  some  of  his  most  tragic  and  visionary  hours,  speedily 
bored  him,  and  he  turned  to  his  right,  studying  the  outlines 
of  the  city,  the  narrow  circle  of  the  Old  City  scarcely  a 
mile  in  diameter  and  its  wide  skirt  of  suburbs  encased  in 
greenery.  Yonder  through  the  luminous  haze  some  miles 
to  the  northward,  that  steady  wreath  of  smoke  should  be 
Wagram ;  and  sweeping  southward  his  eye  rested  longer  on 
the  ruined  spot  where  had  stood  the  villages  of  Aspern  and 
Essling  and  Enzersdorf,  a  field  of  graves,  conquerors  and 
conquered  silent  together. 

A  harsh  reflection  shattered  the  reverie. 

"  Five  months  ago — and  I  am  still  at  Schonbrunn.  Why  ? " 

His  features  hardened;  in  his  figure  the  strained  con- 
tracted expression  like  that  of  a  beast  of  prey  alert  and 
vigilant. 

"But  that  city  is  mine.  Twice  in  five  years  it  has  been 
my  booty,  twice  I  might  have  sacked  it  as  Genghis  did 
Samarcand.  They  may  compel  me  to  do  it  still!" 

Everything  exasperated  him  against  Vienna — its  defi- 
ance in  May ;  the  satire  upon  his  strategy,  seizing  a  capital 
before  he  had  defeated  the  army ;  the  insolence  of  the  in- 
habitants; the  sarcasms  on  his  f£te-day,  the  notorious 
"Zwang"  acrostic,  carefully  interpreted  to  him  by  Savary 
and  Sulmetter;  these  protracted  negotiations;  the  secret 
press.  Peace  or  war,  he  must  inflict  on  that  city  some 
deadly  and  unforgettable  insult,  some  unforgettable  mark  of 
his  anger  and  of  his  power. 

But  his  eye,  passing  from  bastion  to  bastion,  from  the 


78  Schonbrunn 

spire  of  St.  Stephen's  to  the  hexagonal  tower  of  the  Minor- 
ites, rested  upon  a  spot  in  the  southern  portion  of  the  city 
close  to  the  royal  palace. 

It  was  the  Church  of  the  Capuchins.  Only  three  days 
ago  he  had  stood  for  a  long  space  of  time  in  the  crypt  of  the 
vault  where  the  dust  of  the  Habsburgs  mouldered,  emperor 
and  queen,  archdukes  and  princes,  the  elder  and  the  younger 
line,  Habsburg  and  Habsburg-Lorraine — Matthias  and 
Rudolf,  Charles,  Leopold  and  Maria  Theresa.  And  sud- 
denly, here  under  the  wide  sky  as  that  morning  in  the 
damp  odours  of  corruption,  the  same  order  of  ideas  gripped 
him — the  nothingness,  the  supreme  nothingness  of  all  that 
exists.  Even  his  battles,  the  solidest  and  most  enduring,  the 
masterstroke  at  Ulm,  the  trick  on  Dolgorouki  at  Austerlitz, 
Jena,  Eylau,  Friedland  and,  but  yesterday,  the  thunder  of  his 
hundred-gun  battery  over  there  at  Wagram  and,  screened 
by  its  smoke  and  terror,  Macdonald's  charge  sweeping 
through  the  Austrian  centre,  endangering  victory  by  vic- 
tory's very  excess .... 

"A  smoke  that  vanishes,  un  songe  le"ger  qui  se  dis- 
sipe.  ..." 

"What  is  it?  Of  what  am  I  afraid?  If  I  died  to-morrow 
I  should  still  be,  not  with  Conde"  and  Turenne,  Gustavus 
or  Frederick,  but  with  Caesar  and  Alexander.  What  can 
tarnish  their  splendour?  What  total  reverse,  what  disaster 
touch  me  now?" 

He  turned  his  horse's  head  slowly  and  took  the  road  back 
towards  Schonbrunn. 

He  was  impatient  to  be  at  work.  There  were  letters  to 
his  ministers  in  Paris,  letters  to  his  generals  in  Spain,  to  be 
dictated. 

But  the  curious  depression  of  the  morning  increased  as  he 
once  more  turned  towards  the  palace.  It  seemed  as  if 
from  Schonbrunn  itself  something  deadly,  something  hostile 
crept  towards  him  stealthily  yet  resistlessly. 


Napoleon's  Ride  79 

' '  Am  I  used  up  at  forty  ?  Is  my  imagination  indeed  mori- 
bund? Is  this  the  beginning  of  the  end? " 

Yet  at  no  period  of  his  life  had  his  contempt  for  other  men 
been  so  overweening,  his  demand  for  an  instantaneous 
homage  to  his  genius  so  imperious.  His  arrogance  had 
increased;  he  had  become  intolerant  of  contradiction  or 
criticism  of  any  kind  upon  any  subject.  A  caricature  which 
had  appeared  in  Munich — a  Corsican  monkey  snatching 
chestnuts  from  the  fire,  which  England  and  Russia  ate, 
"tasting  all  the  sweeter  because  they're  salted  with  French 
blood," — had  exasperated  him  for  days.  He  resented  even 
the  laughter  in  Paris,  where  all,  even  God  Himself,  was 
laughed  at.  During  the  past  campaign  every  bulletin  of 
the  Grand  Army,  each  of  the  twenty-five  written  since  April, 
had  been  travestied  by  the  wit  of  the  two  street-corner  ras- 
cals, Becoche  and  Galliafre.  Excited  by  Fouche's  insinua- 
tions he  had  seen  during  the  same  months  in  the  prodigious 
success  of  Chateaubriand's  Les  Martyrs  an  insult  to  the 
conqueror  of  Ratisbon  and  Wagram,  a  voluntary  tribute 
to  the  personal  ascendancy  of  the  exiled  poet. 

But  his  own  genius?  Yes;  it  had  lost  its  £lan,  its  cer- 
tainty, its  copious  variety.  He  had  attempted  to  hide  this 
from  himself,  but  he  had  known  it  in  himself  at  Aspern, 
which  was  a  defeat,  as  at  Wagram,  which  was  a  victory. 
At  Eckmuhl  he  had  for  an  instant  felt  the  blinding  splendour 
once  more  about  him;  but  it  vanished.  He  had  felt  the 
same  failing  power  in  his  diplomacy;  he  was  too  nervous,  he 
was  too  irritable.  He  had  felt  it  even  in  dictating  his  bulle- 
tins which  were  stuffed  with  all  the  old  phrases  and  all  the 
old  lies,  but  absolutely  devoid  of  the  old  fire.  His  harangue 
to  the  troops  on  the  eve  of  Wagram  had  remained  a  blotch 
and  a  botch.  His  metaphors  were  tasteless,  his  apostrophes 
vapid,  his  denunciations  of  his  enemies'  perfidy,  of  Austria's 
treachery,  rang  hollow  to  his  own  ears. 

Napoleon  never  openly  admitted  an  error;  but  he  had  too 


8o  Schonbrunn 

much  common  sense,  too  strong  a  love  of  reality  not  to 
acknowledge  in  his  own  breast  that  he  committed  many. 
And  this  morning  they  rankled  furiously.  Every  great  line 
of  policy  during  the  past  two  years  seemed  a  blunder — a 
blunder  the  guet-apens  of  Bayonne;  a  blunder  the  invasion 
of  Spain;  a  blunder  the  blockade  of  England. 

"England!"  he  suddenly  flashed  out.  "Always  Eng- 
land!" 

From  the  very  start  of  his  career  she  had  been  the  fixed 
irreconcilable  enemy,  pursuing  him  like  a  huge  ironic  smile 
— the  real  source  of  his  defeats,  the  genius  of  his  miscalcula- 
tions and  his  errors.  How  had  he  ever  ventured  into  that 
quagmire  of  physiocratism,  le  blocus?  Quesnay's  idea, 
Quesnay's  and  the  physiocrats. 

"Starve  England?  What  madness!  Starve  the  octopus, 
if  you  can,  but  how  is  it  to  be  done?  Stab  her  to  the  heart, 
England,  the  strangler  of  the  globe?  You  cannot,  for  she 
has  no  heart,  only  a  maw  and  her  ubiquitous  deadly  tenta- 
cles—  ships,  fleets  and  yet  more  fleets,  and  everywhere 
gold." 

Yes,  she  might  retreat  from  Antwerp  and  from  Flushing 
as  from  Burgos  and  Corunna.  Like  the  sea,  her  element, 
she  would  return  in  hate  and  in  irony.  His  very  name 
"Napoleon"  became  ridiculous  when  pitted  against  that 
name  "England" — a  gaudy  foam-bubble  flung  upon  the 
gaunt  face  of  an  ancient  cliff.  How  could  he  have  dreamed 
of  conquering  England  with  such  a  nation  as  France  behind 
him — noisy,  fickle,  blustering,  vapouring  France! 

From  his  English  policy  his  tormented  fancy  turned  to  the 
military  errors  which  he  had  committed  in  the  present  cam- 
paign. Despite  those  mistakes  he  had  quelled  the  Arch- 
duke Charles ;  but  behind  the  Archduke  he  now  definitely 
surmised  a  something  which  he  could  not  quell,  a  force 
inexhaustible  as  life,  mysterious,  intangible.  He  had  sur- 
mised it  at  Erfurt  in  peace;  he  had  felt  it  behind  the  furious 


Napoleon's  Ride  81 

assaults  at  Aspern,  and  in  the  sullen  retreat  from  Wagram 
he  had  known  its  unconquerable  stubbornness. 

It  was  the  nation.     It  was  the  people. 

"Bah,  Francis  and  Metternich  dread  this  force  more  than 
I  dread  it.  Yet  Paris?  Paris  is  the  fever-centre  of  this 
force.  For  Paris  is  the  Revolution."  He  sank  in  deeper, 
more  sombre  brooding. 

Here  again  the  recollection,  the  incredible  recollection  of 
error  confronted  him.  And  as  its  climax  he  evoked  the 
violence,  the  frantic  violence  of  his  interview  which  ended 
in  the  dismissal  of  Talleyrand. 

There  too  was  error.  Traitor  as  he  was,  the  club-foot 
priest  was  invaluable ;  his  opposition  was  sometimes  bought, 
his  approval  never.  Champagny  was  a  nigaud.  His 
acceptance  and  resistance  meant  nothing,  and  even  his 
honesty  was  suspect.  Had  not  his  ineptitudes  in  the  ne- 
gotiations at  Altenburg  seemed  intentional?  Talleyrand 
would  have  concluded  peace  two  months  ago. 

"Talleyrand  is  gone!  The  rats  are  quitting  the  sinking 
ship.  Bonaparte  is  lost. " 

The  taunting  royalist  witticism,  reported  or  invented  by 
Fouche",  he  had  at  the  time  disdained;  but  to  his  purged 
eyesight  to-day  it  seemed  laden  with  meaning.  To  Talley- 
rand's defection  he  could  distinctly  trace  the  greatest,  subtl- 
est error  of  all — the  imprisonment  of  the  Pope.  To  seize 
Pacca  the  cardinal  and  leave  him  safely  tied  up  and  gagged 
at  Fenestrella  was  policy;  but  why  had  he  given  Miollis  the 
order  to  seize  the  Pope  also?  Madness  or  blindness,  it  was 
the  capital,  the  irretrievable  mistake.  Pius  VII.  was  old. 
His  gentleness  and  distinction  had  won  the  affection  of  most 
men  and  of  all  women.  And  in  his  conflict  with  himself  the 
Pope  had  so  blended  dignity,  resolution,  and  humility  as  to 
extort  the  admiration  of  Europe. 

Yes;  it  was  a  blunder,  a  blunder  so  incredible  that  he 
could  not  believe  that  it  was  he  who  had  committed  it. 

6 


82  Schonbrunn 

"And  yet,"  he  said,  spurring  his  horse  which  at  that  mo- 
ment needed  no  spur,  "I  should  act  in  the  same  manner  to- 
morrow. I  am  no  stirrup-holder  like  Frederick  Barbarossa ! 
Gratitude  is  a  name — Pius  VII.  crowned  me,  and  out  of 
Monsieur  Bonaparte  made  me  Napoleon  I. ;  but  out  of 
Signer  Chiaramonti,  who  made  him  Pius  VII.?  Eh?  Eh? 
It  is  the  time  that  is  at  fault.  I  should  at  once  have  created 
an  Anti-Pope,  Maury  or  Fesch  or  another.  So  the  Freder- 
icks acted,  so  the  Saxon  emperors,  the  Ottos  and  the  Hein- 
richs ;  but  the  time  is  at  fault.  Heroism  is  no  longer  possible 
in  Europe.  And  even  against  England  my  policy  is  realis- 
ing itself — deadly  if  slow.  After  this — chaos.  I  must  go 
on — and  on.  We  are  tied  to  our  fates.  Rest?  Stop? 
Ask  the  avalanche  to  rest.  ..." 

IV 

"Whom  have  we  here?" 

Napoleon  suddenly  saw  two  figures  in  black  standing 
motionless  side  by  side  near  a  dark  patch  of  trees.  Sur- 
prised, he  looked  at  them.  It  was  two  priests  in  the  Greek 
dress.  Recognizing  Napoleon,  they  removed  their  hats, 
shaped  like  the  inverted  heel  of  a  boot,  and  bowed  deeply. 

Despising  philosophy,  but  interested  in  every  form  of  re- 
ligion, Napoleon  signed  to  them  to  approach.  He  knew 
that  by  the  Treaty  of  Passarowitz  every  Greek  resident  in 
Vienna  was  exempt  from  the  imposts  levied  upon  foreigners. 
He  knew  also  the  evil  character  of  the  Greek,  pilloried  in  the 
Viennese  proverb,  "One  Greek  equal  to  two  Jews."  But 
these  were  both  fine-looking  men,  bearded,  with  broad  open 
foreheads. 

"You  are  happy  in  Vienna?"  he  enquired.  "Yours  is  a 
great  religion.  It  is  the  oldest  form  of  Christianity.  I 
esteem  your  Patriarch. " 

The  priests  again  bowed  deeply. 


Napoleon's  Ride  83 

Then  he  put  various  other  questions,  enquiring  their  names, 
their  ages,  whether  they  were  married,  how  many  children 
they  had — all  this  not  from  the  wish  to  show  his  superiority, 
but  simply  because  his  mind  struck  naturally  for  the  con- 
crete. Driven  on  by  the  same  impulses  he  put  questions  to 
them  regarding  their  parishes  and  the  villages  around,  the 
vineyards  and  the  rotation  of  crops. 

"You  have  many  bad  methods  in  Austria.  England  robs 
you.  Why,  for  instance,  do  you  not  grow  turnips  ?  These 
red  potatoes  suit  the  sandy  soil  around  Berlin  but  in 
the  loamy  soil  by  the  Danube  they  are  absurd.  And 
why  do  you  not  plant  tobacco?  You  are  Greeks  and 
should  teach  the  Germans  as  well  as  the  Magyars.  The 
plantations  in  England  have  begun  again.  Yorkshire,  its 
broadest  county,  is  one  tobacco-field." 

The  younger  priest,  who  was  the  son  of  a  farmer  at  Ico- 
nium,  was  about  to  answer,  but  uncertain  whether  he  had 
understood  the  Emperor's  rapid  French,  he  refrained. 

A  few  of  Bonaparte's  suite  were  impressed,  the  majority 
bored  by  the  interview. 

Then  for  some  seconds  Napoleon  sat  looking  at  the  two 
men  in  silence,  perhaps  contrasting  their  sequestered  un- 
eventful lives  with  his  own. 

"Pray  that  your  God  may  this  day  illumine  your  sover- 
eign's heart,  and  that  he  may  give  to  his  people  peace — 
peace  which  is  the  greatest  of  all  blessings,  as  war  is  the 
greatest  of  all  scourges  to  mankind. " 

And  with  a  grave  but  negligent  salute  he  rode  on,  once 
more  absorbed  in  vexatious  brooding.  Schonbrunn  was  in 
sight.  Behind  its  long  frontage  and  the  two  obelisks  of 
Paccazzi  crested  by  the  Austrian  eagles  with  outspread 
wings,  he  saw  rise  from  its  wooded  hill  La  Gloriette,  and 
far  behind  it,  the  eye  of  his  mind  always  taking  in  vast 
spaces,  he  divined  the  headwaters  of  the  Drave  and  the 
glittering  rampart  of  the  Austrian  Alps. 


84  Schonbrunn 

But  nothing  could  shake  off  his  uneasiness,  for  now  at  that 
very  interview  with  the  priests  his  mind  began  to  forge  for 
itself  exasperating  fancies. 

To  his  overwrought  nerves  every  incident  seemed  a 
warning  sent  by  Destiny.  "Ah,"  he  said  suddenly,  "it  is 
the  thirteenth  of  the  month;  it  is  Friday;  the  word  to-day 
is  'Timoleon'  and  the  countersign  'Persepolis.'  What  an 
accumulation  of  omens!  Conspiracy,  death,  treason  and 
fratricidal  rage.  And  those  two  priests,  starting  from  the 
ground  by  that  dark  wood?" 

The  very  priests  were  now  an  omen,  heralds  of  ill  in  their 
black  and  outlandish  garb.  Every  superstition,  always  on 
the  alert  in  his  Italian  temperament,  now  awoke,  like  hounds 
on  the  track  baying  behind  him — Corsican  superstitions, 
memories  from  his  youth,  his  own  most  mysterious  career, 
always  a  perplexity  to  him.  Other  omens  recurred  to  him. 
His  faithful  valet  Pfeister  had  gone  raving  mad  on  the  field 
of  Wagram,  distracted  by  the  heat  and  the  unparalleled 
cannon  firing;  a  month  later  the  explosion  on  his  birthday 
had  killed  twelve  men,  wounding  seventeen. 

He  wheeled  his  horse  and  glanced  rapidly  back,  his  eye 
ranging  over  the  rolling  landscape,  doubting  whether  the 
priests  were  real  priests  and  not  spectres  risen  from  the 
ground  to  daunt  him. 

Nothing  was  in  sight. 

"  Where  is  Berthier  ?  Why  is  he  not  here? "  he  demanded, 
discovering  for  the  first  time  the  absence  of  the  Prince  de 
Neuchatel.  "Stop  those  two  priests  and  bring  them  back, " 
he  said  in  the  same  breath  to  Lebrun  and  Montesquieu, 
the  two  swiftest  horsemen  of  his  body-guard.  "No;  you 
stay  here,"  he  commanded  Rustum,  who,  something  of  a 
spoiled  child  and  vain  of  his  horsemanship,  was  about  to 
dart  after  them. 

"  Me  go  quicker, "  the  Mameluke  muttered  sulkily,  check- 
ing the  black  charger  he  rode  that  morning. 


Napoleon's  Ride  85 

But,  ashamed  of  his  fancies,  Bonaparte  almost  instantly 
dispatched  two  other  riders  to  stop  the  first,  instructing 
them  to  ascertain  merely  what  road  the  priests  had  taken. 

"If  they  are  phantoms,"  he  argued,  "it  is  to  my  sight 
only  that  they  are  visible. " 

And  heedless  of  the  confusion  and  astonishment  of  his 
escort,  lost  in  black  dreams,  his  right  knee  twitching  against 
the  saddle  as  always  in  his  moments  of  passion  or  unusual 
excitement,  Napoleon  waited. 

Seconds  passed  and  grew  to  minutes,  one,  two,  three; 
then  Lebrun,  though  the  older  man,  heading  Montesquiou 
by  a  length,  was  seen  returning. 

"Ehbien?" 

"They  came  from  Penzing  and  are  on  their  way  to  Konig- 
stettin,  thence  by  cross-roads  to  Staasdorf. " 

Napoleon  sat  for  some  seconds  in  silence,  still  looking  in 
the  direction  from  which  his  riders  had  returned. 

"They  are  lovers  of  the  picturesque  always,  ces  gaillards- 
la,  in  nature  or  in  a  wench. " 

He  gave  an  impatient  tug  at  the  right  rein,  for  during  the 
wait  his  grey  had  sidled  up  to  Rustum's  black.  He  rode 
now  at  a  walking  pace.  Schonbrunn  was  scarcely  a  mile 
and  a  half  away.  At  intervals  he  could  see  the  gleam  of  the 
outspread  immovable  wings  of  the  Habsburg  eagles  above 
the  obelisks,  surmounted  by  the  fluttering  tricolour. 

Bonaparte  sat  heavily  forward  in  the  saddle,  his  head  sunk 
on  his  prodigious  chest,  his  shoulders  high.  His  counte- 
nance had  lost  its  expressiveness;  his  eyes  had  again  the 
tarnished  unsearchable  look,  like  greyish  glass  in  which  we 
can  see  nothing.  His  face  alternately  riveted  and  repelled 
scrutiny,  seeming  now  full  of  profound  significances,  now 
an  empty  mask. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  ASSASSIN 


MEANWHILE,  in  Schonbrunn  and  around  it  and  in 
Vienna  itself,  a  rumour  had  spread  that,  at  the 
noon  parade,  an  attempt  had  been  made  on  Napoleon's 
life.  The  fact  was  reported  at  several  places  simultan- 
eously. In  a  solitary  farm,  eleven  miles  from  Vienna,  a 
swineherd  who  had  fought  against  Bonaparte  at  Rivoli 
came  running  to  his  master  shortly  after  twelve  o'clock. 

"The  Emperor  of  the  French  is  dead. " 

"Then  God  be  praised, "  was  the  simple  and  pious  answer. 

It  was  known  before  one  o'clock  at  Modling,  a  village 
ten  miles  to  the  south  of  Vienna ;  and  at  Ertzen  and  Dorn- 
bach,  hamlets  lying  twelve  miles  to  the  west  of  Schonbrunn, 
it  was  reported  about  the  same  hour. 

Indeed,  the  rapidity  with  which,  in  days  before  elec- 
tricity, rumour  travelled  recalls  that  paragraph  of  a  Greek 
historian  describing  ©pou?  the  spirit  of  Rumour,  the  myste- 
rious influence  which  seems  to  move  from  place  to  place  with- 
out crossing  the  intervening  space,  so  incredible  its  speed. 

The  details  were  variously  stated.  In  all  well-informed 
circles,  it  was  asserted  that  by  the  prompt  intervention 
of  General  Rapp  and  two  other  officers  of  the  suite  the 
Emperor  himself  had  been  unaware  of  the  danger,  that  the 
assassin  had  been  instantly  and  silently  hurried  to  the  guard- 

86 


The  Assassin  87 

room  of  the  palace,  that  the  review  of  the  wounded  had 
not  even  been  interrupted. 

All  admired  this  example  of  French  decision,  and  it  was 
contrasted  with  the  dilatory  methods  and  fuss  of  the  Aus- 
trian gendarmerie;  for  the  assassin,  urged  by  religious  or 
political  fanaticism,  had  approached  within  a  few  feet  of 
his  unsuspicious  and  unarmed  victim. 

In  Schonbrunn  itself  the  excitement  was  extreme.  The 
thousand  rooms,  staircases,  corridors,  and  even  the  garden 
walks,  were  like  a  buzzing  hive;  but  instead  of  with  bees 
they  swarmed  with  officials,  servants,  aides-de-camp,  mar- 
shals, princes,  generals,  pages,  valets,  uniforms  of  every 
hue  and  arm,  chasseurs,  grenadiers,  dragoons,  voltigeurs. 

About  two  o'clock,  Duroc,  the  Grand  Chamberlain,  and 
Prince  Berthier,  who  had  been  closeted  together  for  twenty 
minutes,  entered  the  main  reception-room.  The  former's 
face  had  a  look  of  haggard  concern,  if  not  grief.  His  at- 
tachment to  the  Emperor  was  of  long  standing  and  sincere. 
He  had  fought  at  Rivoli ;  he  had  stood  by  the  First  Consul 
on  the  third  Nivose  when  the  infernal  machine  exploded  in 
the  Rue  St.  Nicaise. 

To  many  the  attack,  real  or  imaginary,  was  an  excite- 
ment, a  curiosity;  Duroc  it  made  physically  sick  and  ill.  To 
the  others  Napoleon  was  an  institution,  a  man  superior  to 
suffering;  but  Duroc  saw  him  in  daily  life.  He  saw  him 
affected  like  others  by  what  he  ate  or  drank,  by  the  weather, 
the  sunshine  or  the  damp.  He  was  the  hourly  witness  of 
his  weaknesses,  his  diseases.  Others  had  heard  in  July  last 
the  rumours  of  epilepsy,  or  again  in  August,  of  insanity. 
Duroc  knew  the  reality.  They  speculated  upon  his  death 
— now  above  all  that  he  could  have  no  heir — by  illness,  or 
on  the  battlefield,  or  by  poison,  or  as  to-day  by  a  dagger- 
thrust.  Duroc  could  share  none  of  these  speculations. 
The  Court  of  the  Tuileries  resembled,  Favrol  had  said  in 
disgust,  Rome  under  Pius  VI.,  when  a  black-frocked  popu- 


88  Schonbrunn 

lace  speculated  on  the  death  of  a  pope  as  upon  a  gigantic 
lottery,  crying  out  "Non  videbis  annos  Petri. "  To  Duroc 
Napoleon  was  still  as  at  Arcola. 

"My  dear  Duroc,"  Berthier  said  in  answer  to  an  ex- 
postulation wrung  from  the  Grand  Chamberlain,  "what 
is  one  to  do?  Risks  he  must  run.  Mon  Dieu!  do  not  I 
try  to  keep  him  within  bounds? — as  you  have  tried,  Duroc, 
as  you  have  tried.  But  what  is  the  result?" 

If  Berthier's  grief  was  less  sincere  his  face  made  amends. 
That  was  grief -stricken  enough.  It  was  the  ruin  of  a  face. 
For  in  the  heat  and  excitement  the  perspiration  had  formed 
little  runlets  everywhere  amongst  the  powder  on  his 
cheeks. 

"This  may  be  a  warning  to  him,"  Duroc  said  quietly. 
"Who  is  to  inform  His  Majesty?" 

"You  had  better  do  that,"  Berthier  answered  cordially. 
"You  certainly." 

Berthier,  whose  jealousy  had  steadily  repressed  the 
advance  of  Davout,  had  no  jealousy  of  Duroc.  Besides, 
he  still  smarted  under  Napoleon's  snub,  and  knew  that  the 
Emperor  would  at  once  conjecture  why  he  had  attempted 
to  speak  to  him  after  the  parade. 

About  the  large,  uncouth  iron  stove  which  disfigured  this 
charming  rococo  apartment,  stood  four  general  officers  and 
two  aides-de-camp,  not  that  day  on  duty,  but  now  called 
out  by  the  Emperor's  danger,  Colonel  Favrol  and  General 
Mouton,  "the  lion  named  a  sheep."  Mouton  was  fast 
rising  in  Napoleon's  favour.  He  had  slept  in  the  Emperor's 
tent  on  the  night  of  the  conflagration  which,  after  Cla- 
parede's  bloody  engagement,  had  burst  out  in  Ebersdorf, 
burning  wounded  and  dead  alike  in  one  hideous  holocaust, 
and  filling  the  air  for  three  miles  around  with  the  smell  of 
roasting  human  flesh.  Mouton  had  the  face  of  an  Irish- 
man, a  "ranker, "  dirty-looking  and  sullen.  Favrol,  on  the 
other  hand,  was,  like  Montesquieu,  a  man  of  good  family, 


The  Assassin  89 

and  found  himself  daily  outraged  by  the  barrack  brutalities 
of  Napoleon's  "rankers." 

These  two  now  stood  side  by  side,  but  talking  in  the 
guarded,  quiet  way  of  men  who  esteem  but  do  not  trust 
each  other ;  members  of  a  profession  in  which  intrigue  was 
the  path  to  advancement. 

Before  Favrol's  eyes  still  floated  the  image  of  the  open 
carriage,  the  profiles  of  the  two  women — the  Princess 
Durrenstein's  wayward  grace,  and  the  sadness  and  energy 
of  the  Countess  Ama1ie  von  Esterthal.  Had  she  too  a 
lover?  And  that  lover? 

II 

"Mad  or  sane,  I  hope  the  Emperor  will  make  short  work 
of  him, "  a  heavy,  red-faced  general  of  cuirassiers  observed 
to  Mouton.  "This  attack  on  His  Majesty  may  be  a 
preliminary  to  an  attack  on  the  army  itself.  Germany  is 
a  nation  of  fanatics. " 

"That  will  be  all  right.  What  happened  to  Eschen- 
bacher  and  Thell?"  Mouton  spoke  carelessly,  but  his 
voice  had  so  brazen  a  ring  that  it  penetrated  the  room, 
echoing. 

Eschenbacher  and  Thell  were  two  honest  bourgeois  of 
Vienna  who  in  May  had  been  shot  for  some  trivial  offence 
against  military  law. 

The  other  officers  turned  at  Mouton's  voice;  some 
remained  where  they  stood,  others  came  nearer  to  the 
group  about  the  stove. 

The  movement  left  isolated  a  big,  lean,  sunburnt  general 
of  grenadiers,  heavily  marked  by  smallpox.  This  was 
Hulin,  "the  stormer  of  the  Bastille. "  Though  a  "ranker" 
he  had  neither  Mouton's  voice  nor  his  aggressive  geni- 
ality. 

Favrol  moved  away.     Mouton's  manners  grated  on  him 


90  Schonbrunn 

worse  than  Mouton's  accent.  But  he  was  immediately 
joined  by  Bertrand.  Bertrand  was  clean-shaven,  fair- 
complexioned,  and,  at  two  and  thirty,  a  general  of  division. 

"What's  on  at  the  opera  to-night?"  he  said  to  Favrol. 
"And  the  Austrian  charmer — how's  that,  eh?  I  saw  you 
in  her  rear  at  the  parade.  Any  signs  of  a  thaw  or  is  she 
still  polar?  Both  she  and  her  Polish  friend  look  as  if  they 
might  become  tropical  enough.  Eh?  Lucky  at  cards, 
unlucky  in  love. " 

Favrol,  wheeling  round,  said  abruptly: 

"What  do  you  think  will  be  the  effect  of  this  morning's 
affair?  Did  you  see  the  attempt?  Or  the  assassin  himself  ?" 

"Not  the  actual  blow.  But  I  am  convinced  I  saw  the 
fellow  himself  loafing  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs — slim  and 
blonde  as  a  girl.  It  may  set  us  on  the  march  from  here  to- 
morrow. It  may  keep  us  here  for  another  six  months." 

Bertrand  and  Favrol  knew  very  well  that  at  this  moment 
the  secret  pre-occupation  of  every  heart  in  the  room  and 
in  every  room  of  this  crowded  palace,  and  in  every  barrack, 
camp  or  cantonment  in  which  the  attack  was  surmised  or 
known,  was  just  this  question:  "What  will  be  the  effect 
of  this  on  the  prospects  of  peace?" 

A  second  later  both  men  had  a  proof  of  it;  for  a  cavalry 
officer,  bright-eyed,  smiling,  high-complexioned,  redolent 
of  good  health,  showing  his  white  teeth,  came  jingling  his 
gilt  spurs  towards  them.  "Well,  mon  g6neral, "  he  said, 
addressing  Bertrand.  "What  do  you  think?  Is  it  war  or 
peace?  To  me  it  doesn't  matter  a  damn — Je  m'en  fiche. 
I've  been  in  the  saddle  ten  hours  to-day,  and  last  night  I 
had  not  three  hours'  sleep.  Serving  Napoleon  is  like  serv- 
ing a  devil. " 

"Blagueur!"  said  Bertrand.  "A  jay  like  you!  What 
lively  young  woman  kept  you  awake?" 

"No  girl  at  all,"  the  younger  man  said  seriously;  "but 
our  Lady  of  Spades.  A  beggarly  queen — a  very  raven  of  a 


The  Assassin  91 

card — not  another  all  night!  I'm  now  done  brown!  Done 
brown!"  he  repeated,  as  though  the  word  summed  up  some 
aspect  of  his  philosophy  of  life. 

"He  that  would  live  next  year  must  live  to-day," 
chanted  an  aide-de-camp,  quoting  a  saying  of  Napoleon's 
which  at  this  period  the  latter  iterated  in  his  letters  to  his 
brother  Joseph.  "And  he  who  would  live  to-day  must 
have  cash. " 

"Why,"  said  a  dragoon,  "if  we  stay  much  longer  the 
Viennese  will  have  to  eat  their  own  rats.  My  servant 
bayonets  seventy  of  a  morning — squeak,  squeak!"  he  said, 
imitating  the  scream  of  a  wounded  rat. 

He  was  quartered  in  the  city  and  had  this  instant  brought 
a  message  from  his  own  general  to  Nansouty.  "Hot  in 
this  oven,  is  it  not?"  he  muttered,  taking  off  his  helmet  and 
wiping  his  forehead.  His  hair  smelt  of  pomade. 

And  the  newcomer  excitedly  told  once  more,  with  varia- 
tions and  details,  the  story  of  the  attack.  According  to 
this  latest  version  the  assassin  had  been  seen  three  days 
ago  lounging  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  waiting  then  to  per- 
petrate the  dastardly  act. 

"Longer,  longer!  Seven  days  ago  ..."  interrupted 
Mouton.  "No,  but  let  me  speak.  It  was  last  Friday  at 
this  very  hour.  I  was  on  duty  and  I  saw  the  fellow  as 
plainly  as  I  see  Dafour  yonder;  but  that  morning  the 
Emperor,  instead  of  descending  by  the  right  as  he  usually 
does,  went  down  by  the  left.  That  choice  saved  his  life. 
But  this  morning,  I  ask,  what  saved  him?  Who  can  tell 
me  that?" 

"Mon  Dieu — who  is  that?"  muttered  the  dragoon  in  a 
stage  aside. 

From  an  inner  room  a  man  in  a  cuirassier's  uniform  ad- 
vanced a  step,  then  stood  motionless.  He  was  of  uncertain 
age,  yet,  like  nearly  every  man  in  the  room,  under  forty. 
His  strangely  furtive  yet  arrogant  and  penetrating  glance 


92  Schonbrunn 

seemed  to  take  in  the  conversation  in  every  quarter  of  the 
room. 

Duroc  lifted  his  head  and  looked  at  the  sinister  visitor 
quietly.  Berthier  took  no  notice  of  him.  After  a  few 
seconds,  but  still  without  a  word  of  greeting  or  courtesy 
to  any  man,  he  disappeared. 

Bertrand  approached  Hulin. 

"Savary  becomes  unbearable.  He  can  be  civil  only  to 
the  Emperor. " 

Hulin  shrugged  his  right  shoulder  curiously.  It  was  the 
action  of  the  old  linesman  hitching  up  his  knapsack. 

"Yes;  he  looks  an  ill-omened  bird,  does  he  not?  But  he 
loves  this  day's  work,  and  its  sequel.  We  hate  it,  we 
others,  yet  we  consent. " 


in 


A  clatter  of  hoofs  outside,  the  champing  of  bits  and  the 
voices  and  laughter  of  a  gay  cavalcade  came  through  the 
open  windows.  The  stove  had  been  lighted;  the  two  iron 
statues  used  for  heating  the  hall  were  also  glowing,  and 
the  soldiers,  accustomed  to  the  bivouac,  had  flung  the 
windows  wide. 

"It  is  the  Emperor." 

The  change  was  instantaneous  and,  though  usual,  still 
magical.  Every  figure  took  a  different  attitude,  many 
making  a  desperate  effort  to  assume  the  poses,  to  recollect 
the  gestures  studied  by  Napoleon's  orders  under  M.  Gardel, 
director  of  the  Opera  ballet  in  Paris,  the  right  foot  drawn 
back,  the  head  and  shoulders  respectfully  bowed.  Voices 
were  lowered,  but  at  the  same  time  the  excitement  on  every 
face  was  augmented.  One  minute  passed,  a  second  and 
then  a  third.  Outside  the  riders  had  not  dismounted,  but 
silence  had  crept  over  them;  even  the  horses  appeared  to 
have  caught  the  infection,  for  the  jingling  of  a  rein  or  the 


The  Assassin  93 

champing  of  the  bits  occurred  at  rarer  and  rarer  intervals. 
Within  the  room  the  malaise,  the  impatience  became 
intolerable. 

Had  something  happened  to  Napoleon,  after  all?  Mon 
Dieu,  was  it  his  dead  body  that  the  cortege  was  bringing 
home? 

Someone  went  to  the  window  and  peeped. 

It  was  Berthier. 

He  was  heard  to  exchange  a  rapid  sentence  or  two  with 
Duroc,  and  arm  in  arm  they  were  about  to  proceed  down- 
stairs, when  the  double  door  was  flung  violently  open  and, 
white  as  death,  but  with  his  greyish  eyes  almost  black  in 
their  burning  intensity,  Napoleon  appeared. 

His  glance,  which  passed  from  face  to  face — each  man 
felt  it,  like  the  cold  touch  of  a  lance  probing  his  inmost 
thought. 

The  silence  became  profounder.  Then  rushing  straight 
upon  Berthier,  who  stood  with  his  arms  folded  in  ridiculous 
imitation  of  his  master,  Napoleon  exclaimed,  his  voice 
thick  and  shrill  with  passion: 

4 '  What  is  this  I  hear  ?     Speak ! ' ' 

But  before  Berthier  could  answer  two  other  figures,  both 
in  the  uniform  of  the  chasseurs  of  the  Guard,  appeared  in 
the  doorway  behind  the  Emperor.  It  was  Savary,  due  de 
Rovigo,  and  General  Rapp. 

"Ah,  mon  brave  Rapp — you  here  too?"  Napoleon  cried, 
abandoning  Berthier.  "Savary  tells  me  that  I  owe  my 
life  to  you.  What  is  the  meaning  of  it?  Recount,  re- 
count!" 

But  for  the  grey  pallor  of  Napoleon's  face  it  might  have 
been  thought  that  he  spoke  the  words  in  sarcasm  or  in 
insult,  so  like  a  sneer  was  the  tone  in  which  he  jerked  out 
the  rapid  interpellation. 

Rapp,  disconcerted  by  this  brusque  reception,  narrated 
the  incident,  but  slowly  and  confusedly.  He  was  evidently 


94  Schonbrunn 

labouring  under  strong  feeling,  and,  as  always  on  such 
occasions,  his  Rhenish  accent  betrayed  itself  and  his 
words  became  entangled. 

"Come,  come!"  Napoleon  said  more  kindly,  "debar- 
bouillez-vous, — clear  the  mud  from  your  mind  and  speak 
distinctly!  At  what  hour  precisely  was  this,  and  where 
exactly  was  I  standing?  How  did  the  assassin's  intention 
escape  me?" 

"Your  Majesty  was  engaged  with  the  Guard,"  Berthier 
broke  in. 

"Let  Rapp  speak,"  Napoleon  said  coldly. 

Rapp  began  again.  His  resentment  had  vanished;  his 
attachment  to  his  master  and  that  master's  danger  alone 
were  in  his  heart.  His  face  became  animated.  His  fine 
soldierly  figure  held  erect,  he  expressed  in  a  few  words  his 
indignation,  his  concern,  his  devotion  to  the  Emperor  and 
his  gratitude  to  God. 

Rapp  was  not  yet  forty,  though  three  years  older  than 
Savary.  Like  the  latter  he  was  devoured  by  a  fever  of 
ambition,  but  unlike  the  latter  he  was  scrupulous  in  his 
means  of  realizing  that  ambition.  Constantly  disappointed, 
constantly  seeing  men  inferior  to  himself  pass  him  in  the 
race  for  titles,  riches,  rank,  he  had  the  reputation  of  being 
unlucky  or  evil-starred.  Whilst  men  like  Duroc,  Murat 
and  Berthier  passed  through  a  hundred  battles  without  a 
scratch,  Rapp  never  entered  a  battle  and  seldom  a  combat 
without  a  misfortune  of  some  kind,  a  bullet  wound,  a 
sword-thrust  or  a  fall  from  a  horse.  His  open  and  in- 
dependent character  interfered  with  his  advance,  and 
thus  at  nine  and  thirty  he  was  only  a  general  and  for  the 
last  weeks  only,  a  count,  an  honour  won  by  his  gallantry 
at  Aspern  and  by  arduous  exertions  in  Lobau.  The  great 
moment  of  Rapp's  life  had  been  the  moment  at  the  battle 
of  Austerlitz  in  which  with  seven  hundred  men  he  had 
charged  the  Imperial  Guard  of  the  Czar  himself,  had  cut  a 


The  Assassin  95 

gap  into  that  famous  body  of  horsemen,  veterans  of  Su- 
varow,  and,  wheeling  round  when  he  was  about  to  be 
enclosed,  had  forced  a  desperate  path  through  the  envelop- 
ing grey-coats  and  covered  with  wounds  and  blood  had 
returned  leisurely  to  his  position,  and  later  on  in  the 
December  evening  had  taken  part  in  the  grand  pursuit. 
The  frost  had  congealed  his  wounds.  But  before  he 
bivouacked  he  had  been  sent  for  by  Napoleon  in  person 
and,  covered  with  frozen  blood  as  with  a  glittering  mail 
of  glory,  he  had  presented  himself  before  the  Emperor  in 
his  tent.  Napoleon's  words  still  at  times  rang  in  his  ears. 
After  Jena,  however,  a  change  had  come  over  Rapp.  He 
was  nicknamed  "the  German";  the  heavy  moustache 
which  he  obstinately  wore  in  an  army  whose  officers  were 
mostly,  like  the  Emperor,  clean-shaven,  or,  like  Davout 
and  Savary,  clean-shaven  on  the  lip  and  chin  but  whisk- 
ered barely  to  the  lobe  of  the  ear,  seemed  to  justify  the 
nickname.  He  could  not  explain  it  himself,  but  he  was  an 
Alsatian,  and  it  might  have  been  that  the  humiliation  of 
Germany  stirred  some  lingering  or  inherited  reminiscences 
of  his  race  in  his  blood.  He  had  been  at  Eylau  and  at 
Friedland,  but  he  had  never  again  found  quite  the  rap- 
ture of  that  moment  at  Austerlitz,  and  disappointment  or 
jealousy  or  a  secret  rancour  or  an  ill-quenched  German 
patriotism  or  a  republicanism  only  half  dead  had  aggra- 
vated his  naturally  sardonic  temperament. 


IV 


"And  where  now  is  the  assassin?"  Napoleon  at  length 
said,  interrupting  Rapp  in  the  midst  of  his  narrative;  for 
as  if  embarrassed  by  the  Emperor's  approval,  nods  and 
encouraging  words,  Rapp,  instead  of  answering  briefly, 
had  plunged  into  irrelevancies,  digressions  and  repetitions — 
what  Savary  had  said,  what  Berthier  had  thought,  what 


96  Schonbrunn 

Mouton  had  proposed,  what  Bertrand  had  answered. 
"Answer  each  question  as  I  ask  it,  and  that  question  only. 
Where  is  the  prisoner?" 

"In  the  guard-house  of  the  west  wing. " 

"But  how  came  you  to  suspect  that  he  meant  to  assassin- 
ate me?" 

The  tone  and  the  look  which  accompanied  these  words 
startled  every  hearer. 

If  there  were  a  snare  or  treachery  in  the  question,  or  if 
the  "Corsican  touch"  made  itself  felt,  Rapp  ignored  it. 
His  honest  limited  countenance  was  undisturbed. 

"Something  in  his  persistence,"  he  said  deliberately, 
"his  earnest  and  exalted  mien " 

But  like  the  swift  vicious  glimmer  of  unexpected  light- 
nings came  the  interruption: 

"Since  when  has  an  earnest  look  or  an  exalted  mien 
become  the  mark  of  a  criminal?" 

"Your  Majesty!     In  Germany " 

Rapp  appeared  about  to  begin  a  digression.  Napoleon 
stopped  him  again. 

"Answer  my  question." 

The  false  calm  of  Napoleon's  accent  was  well  known. 
Every  man  shifted  uneasily  and  every  heart  that  had  a 
secret  felt  as  if  the  covering  were  lifted  and  those  glaucous 
eyes  were  gazing  in  upon  it. 

Berthier's  left  arm  dropped  by  his  side;  his  right  re- 
mained helplessly  across  his  chest  as  if  held  in  an  invisible 
sling.  Duroc  glanced  pleadingly  but  furtively  at  his  mas- 
ter. Savary's  mean-looking,  close-set  eyes  became  atten- 
tive, and  straining  his  head  slightly  forward  to  listen,  the 
line  of  his  long  nose  seemed  to  reach  his  upper  lip  and  his 
resemblance  to  Leonardo's  Judas  became  more  apparent. 

Impassive,  Napoleon  awaited  the  reply. 

Rapp  did  not  at  once  proceed.  This  was  not  the  Em- 
peror whom  he  knew,  this  was  not  the  master  who  habit- 


The  Assassin  97 

ually  addressed  him  as  "mon  brave  Rapp."  Before  this 
accusing  judge  it  was  not  the  murderer  who  was  impanelled, 
it  was  he,  Rapp,  or  it  was  Savary  or  it  was  one  of  his  fellow- 
officers,  the  aides-de-camp,  generals  and  marshals  standing 
around  in  bewildered  or  self-condemned  apprehension. 
What  had  seized  Napoleon? 

It  was  characteristic  of  the  impression  made  by  Napoleon 
even  on  his  most  faithful  ones  that  whilst  there  was  no 
sublimity  to  which  they  did  not  imagine  his  genius  capable 
of  mounting,  there  was  also  no  meanness  and  no  crime  to 
which  they  could  not  imagine  it  stooping. 

Rapp  struggled  to  realize  the  situation;  but  he  could 
only  image,  incongruously,  the  Emperor's  reception  of  the 
two  couriers  bringing  the  news  of  Talavera.  The  first 
Napoleon  had  accused  of  being  in  league  with  the  English 
and  of  forging  the  report  of  Wellington's  victory.  The 
second  he  had  rewarded  for  an  unusually  rapid  ride  from 
Bayonne  by  throwing  him  into  a  dungeon  in  Vienna.  And 
there,  for  anything  Rapp  knew,  the  unfortunate  messenger 
still  lay.  Was  Napoleon  for  this  morning's  devotion  about 
to  reward  him  in  the  same  manner?  Or  was  he  doubting 
his  word,  or  was  he  doubting  Savary's,  or  had  Savary  given 
a  distorted  account? — for  Savary  was  known  to  be  under- 
mining Fouche's  power  and  suspected  of  undermining 
everybody's.  Was  he,  Rapp  himself,  perhaps  the  victim  of 
a  got-up  job  of  Savary's?  Was  the  attempt  at  assassina- 
tion part  of  a  faked  conspiracy?  Or,  if  the  conspiracy  were 
real,  did  Napoleon  suspect  that  someone  in  this  room  was 
in  league  with  the  assassin,  and  would  his  answer  lead  to 
that  traitor's  conviction? 

That  answer,  cost  what  it  would,  he  now  determined  to 
give.  He  spoke. 

"I  observed  that  whilst  the  assassin  held  out  the  petition 
in  his  left  hand  he  carried  his  right  thrust  in  the  breast  of  his 
coat  and  seemed  to  clutch  a  weapon  there. " 

7 


98  Schonbrunn 

"You  have  searched  him?" 

"Yes,  sire." 

"And  the  result?" 

"We  found  on  him  a  purse  with  three  florins,  a  miniature, 
some  papers,  and — this,  your  Majesty." 

Every  face  was  changed  and  suppressed  exclamations  of 
horror  burst  from  one  after  another  of  the  witnesses  of  this 
extraordinary  scene. 

The  weapon  which  Rapp  stood  holding  out  towards  the 
Emperor  was  certainly  formidable  enough,  fit  even  in  an 
unsteady  or  faltering  hand  to  inflict  a  deadly  injury.  It 
had  been  a  table-knife;  it  was  now  a  dagger.  Both  edges 
had  been  ground  to  a  long,  fine  point,  a  blade  of  about  nine 
inches  set  strongly  in  a  coarse  haft  of  unpolished  ash. 

Napoleon  alone  did  not  blench.  His  manner  became  if 
possible  quieter.  It  was  the  look  almost  of  gaiety  which  St. 
Hilaire  had  seen  on  his  face  at  Ostrolenka  and  which 
Davout  had  described  in  a  letter  to  his  wife  from  Auerstadt 
as  his  "battle  look." 

The  Emperor  took  the  dagger  from  Rapp's  hand,  glanced 
along  the  blade,  then  placed  the  point  first  against  the  white 
full  flesh  of  his  wrist,  then  against  the  deep  green  of  the 
sleeve  of  his  coat,  continuing  his  scrutiny  of  the  steel. 
Apparently  he  did  not  detect  the  marks  that  he  sought, 
for  he  flung  the  weapon  clattering  on  the  table  laden  with 
vases  and  precious  ornaments  beside  him,  with  the  remark : 

"The  daggers  of  England  find  me  even  here.  Take  it  to 
Geraudin;  ask  him  to  test  whether  the  point  is  poisoned, 
whether  the  Cabinet  of  St.  James's  is  imitating  that  of  the 
Borgias.  En  veYite",  Canning  goes  further  than  Pitt." 

Then,  one  suspicion  hunting  another  out  of  his  brain,  he 
turned  harshly  to  Rapp. 

"How  comes  it  that  the  criminal  spoke  only  to  you?" 

Napoleon  in  putting  this  question  looked  at  Berthier, 
then  at  Savary,  and  then  again  at  Rapp,  and  waited. 


The  Assassin  99 

Duroc  intervened,  placatingly  as  always. 

"The  Prince  de  Neuchatel  does  not  know  German  and 
the  due  de  Rovigo  speaks  it  imperfectly. " 

The  storm  suppressed  till  then  flamed  out. 

"Have  my  armies  thrice  conquered  Germany  and  only 
one  man  in  all  my  staff  knows  the  language  of  the  countries 
we  have  overrun?" 

Duroc  was  heard  to  say  something  of  the  Count  Daru. 
The  latter  had  been  with  the  Emperor  at  Erfurt  and  had 
intervened  tactfully,  though  late  a  little,  when  Napoleon, 
that  patron  of  the  arts,  had  addressed  to  the  author  of 
Faust,  Egmont,  Goetz  and  Iphigenie  the  naive  questions — 
"Have  you  written  any  tragedies?  Are  you  married? 
How  many  children  have  you  ?  How  old  are  you  ?  If  you 
come  to  Paris  I  will  suggest  subjects  to  you  better  than  any 
you  can  find  at  Weimar — the  death  of  Caesar,  for  instance." 

But  the  Emperor's  outburst  against  his  officers'  ignorance 
of  German  was  only  a  preliminary.  He  now  resumed  his 
inquisitory  and  turned  once  more  to  Rapp. 

"And  to  you,  monsieur  the  professor  of  German,  what 
did  the  assassin  say  ? "  he  enquired  with  an  adder-like  smile. 
"What  harm  have  I  done  him  that  he  wishes  to  kill  me? 
And  who  is  he?  Is  he  English?" 

"He  speaks  German,"  Rapp  answered,  "and  says  he 
comes  from  Erfurt,  but  to  every  other  question  I  asked  him 
he  had  but  one  answer,  'Das  kann  ich  dem  Napoleon 
selbst  nur  sagen' — 'That  I  will  tell  to  Napoleon  himself 
only."1 

The  Emperor  did  not  immediately  continue.  He  seemed 
at  once  inquisitive  and  troubled  by  this  evidence  of 
resolution. 

"He  wishes  to  see  me  then?"  he  said  at  last. 

"Sire,  he  is  unshakable  and  will  speak  to  no  one  but  to 
you." 

Napoleon  glanced  at  Berthier  and  then  at  Duroc,  but  it 


ioo  Schonbrunn 

was  not  a  look  which  either  of  them  could  fathom  or 
attempt  to  answer. 

"Bring  him  here, "  he  said  briefly  after  a  pause. 


Savary,  accompanied  by  two  aides-de-camp,  left  the 
room.  For  a  second  or  two  there  was  a  buzz  of  conversa- 
tion, but  the  tension  of  nerves  which  every  man  felt  had 
scarcely  diminished,  and  again  silence  fell. 

Napoleon  began  to  walk  up  and  down  with  his  hands 
behind  his  back,  his  head  bent,  his  brow  unmarked  by 
anxiety,  but  wearing  an  expression  of  intense  thought. 
His  mind  had  gone  back  to  the  incidents  of  his  ride,  to  the 
cloud  which  had  weighed  on  him  when  he  wakened  that 
morning,  to  the  hesitancy  which  had  marked  his  interview 
with  Liechtenstein,  to  the  omens  or  presages  which  had 
pursued  him  throughout  the  day — his  reflections  on  look- 
ing across  to  the  field  of  Wagram,  and  his  meeting  with 
the  two  priests.  Within  him,  he  reasoned,  death  had 
closed  mysteriously  in  a  conflict  with  life,  and  these  pre- 
monitions had  marked  the  phases  of  that  conflict.  But 
since  his  twenty-fifth  year  he  had  lived  cheek  by  jowl  with 
death,  sleeping  night  by  night,  so  to  speak,  on  the  edge  of  a 
grave.  Recently  his  mind  had  taken  habitually  to  think- 
ing of  his  own  death  and  the  manner  of  it,  and,  obscurely 
foreboding  that  with  his  supernatural  luck  he  should  not 
die  on  the  battlefield,  he  had  turned  to  the  thought  of 
assassination  and  spoke  much  of  Caesar's  death,  picturing 
himself  dying  in  that  manner.  Who  could  tell  that  Murat, 
Fouchd,  Talleyrand  and  Junot  had  not  included  some  such 
act  in  their  conspiracy  of  the  preceding  November? 

"No,  this  is  not  in  my  destiny,"  he  decided  suddenly, 
his  lips  moving  though  not  a  sound  escaped  them.  "Others 
may  be  assassinated  like  Kl^ber  or  Paul  I.  I  shall  die 


The  Assassin  101 

only  on  the  battlefield.     Destiny,  the  nature  of  things,  all 
is  in  that — what  we  are  or  shall  be. " 

At  a  stir  that  to  his  strung  nerves  sounded  like  a  crash, 
he  turned.  In  the  doorway  stood  Savary,  and,  between 
two  gendarmes,  his  hands  tied  behind  his  back,  Napoleon 
saw  a  tall,  slim  boy,  well-made,  with  blonde  hair,  blue  eyes 
and  a  general  expression  at  once  in  face  and  figure  that 
suggested  a  girl  masquerading  in  boy's  clothing.  Nothing 
in  him  was  English,  and  his  voice  when  he  answered 
Savary,  who,  after  examining  the  cords  which  tied  his 
hands  behind  his  back,  commanded  him  to  advance,  dis- 
pelled the  illusion  that  the  prisoner  was  a  girl.  His  stock 
was  torn,  and  under  the  sunburnt  face  and  chin  the  neck 
was  very  white.  The  rest  of  his  dress  also  showed  traces 
of  a  struggle;  for  he  had  fought  furiously  even  after  his 
arrest  and  had  indignantly  resisted  being  searched. 

Napoleon,  whose  purpose  appeared  now  to  be  to  cast 
over  the  whole  affair  a  semblance  of  unimportance  or 
comedy,  looked  at  the  prisoner  with  an  air  of  incredulity, 
even  smilingly.  "What  is  your  name?"  he  said  briefly 
but  not  unkindly. 

The  boy  did  not  answer.     Napoleon  frowned. 
"He  does  not  understand  your  Majesty,"  Duroc  said, 
intervening.     "He  speaks  only  German." 

"Ah!     Who  then?     Tou jours  le  brave  Rapp!" 

Rapp  stepped  forward,  and  addressing  the  boy  began: 

"His  Majesty  the  Emperor  of  the  French  desires  to  ask " 

Napoleon  stopped  him. 

"Address  him  in  my  person  as  if  I  were  actually  speaking 
to  him,  and  quit  that  galimatias. " 

The  interview  then  proceeded,  Napoleon  putting  the 
questions  straight  to  the  prisoner,  Rapp  translating  them 
straight  into  German,  very  harsh  and  Alsatian  in  its  accent 
against  the  boy's  soft,  Suabian,  lapsing  patois. 

Napoleon  repeated  his  question, — "What  is  your  name?" 


102  Schonbrimn 

"Friedrich  Staps." 

' '  Stabs  ?     How  do  you  spell  it  ?  " 

Rapp  transliterated  the  boy's  answer. 

"How  old  are  you?"    Napoleon  proceeded. 

"Seventeen."  And  then  after  a  second's  reflection  he 
added,  "I  was  seventeen  in  March  last, "  as  though  wishing 
to  claim  for  himself  the  utmost  age  possible. 

Napoleon  looked  at  him  searchingly.  He  did  not  seem 
of  peasant  birth;  he  might  have  been,  rather,  a  student,  or 
a  page  in  the  house  of  one  of  the  Austrian  nobility,  whose 
servants  at  that  period  were  often  selected  from  the  bour- 
geois families.  On  the  other  hand,  his  accent  was  not  that 
of  Vienna. 

"And  your  home?  And  what  is  your  father's  occu- 
pation?" 

"I  live  at  Erfurt.     My  father  is  a  pastor  at  Naumburg." 

"You  are  a  Thuringian  then?"  As  though  struck  by  a 
thought  Napoleon  said  quickly,  "You  saw  me  at  Erfurt 
in  November — nearly  a  year  ago?" 

"I  did." 

There  was  a  pause.  That  question  and  that  answer 
hovered  above  an  abyss  of  tragedy  from  which  the  accuser 
not  the  accused  wished  to  avert  his  eyes.  Abruptly 
Napoleon  resumed  the  original  course  of  his  questions. 

"Of  what  religion  is  your  father — Romanist  or  Re- 
formed?" 

"He  is  a  Lutheran." 

"And  your  mother?" 

"  My  mother  is  dead. " 

"And  the  miniature  which  was  found  in  your  possession?" 

"Meine  Geliebte — my  sweetheart's." 

"Ah,  you  young  hot-head,"  Napoleon  suddenly  burst 
out,  "what  disaster  you  have  brought  upon  her  and  upon 
your  father  and  upon  all  your  family !  Why  have  you  done 
this  thing?  What  injury  have  I  done  you?  Answer  me, 


The  Assassin  103 

and  remember  that  upon  your  answer  depends  not  only 
your  own  life  or  death  but  the  shame  or  fortune  of  her  you 
love — of  all  you  love.  " 

"They  will  not  be  ashamed  of  me.  They  will  only 
regret  that  I  have  not  succeeded." 

The  words  were  assured;  but  the  manner  was  hesitating. 
At  Erfurt  he  had  seen  Napoleon  surrounded  by  Germans, 
his  satellites.  He  had  seen  even  Goethe  walk  along  the 
linden  avenue  arm  in  arm  with  Marshal  Lannes  and  appar- 
ently proud  of  his  companion — the  Roland  of  this  new 
Charlemagne. 

Napoleon,  as  though  divining  his  prisoner's  inmost 
thought,  said  suddenly,  but  so  softly  that  it  was  like  the 
rebuke  of  a  friend: 

"And  yet  you  wished  to  assassinate  me?" 

"I  did,  because  you  are  the  enemy  of  Germany." 

"The  enemy  of  Germany?  Yet  you  saw  me  at  Erfurt,  at- 
tended by  your  princes,  your  kings,  your  nobles,  your  poets, 
your  men  of  science,  your  priests,  your  pastors?  Why  then 
do  you  call  me  the  enemy  of  Germany?  No;  but  answer. " 

"They  hated  you  even  whilst  they  flattered  you  or  made 
peace  with  you.  I  wished  to  deliver  them  and  to  deliver 
my  country."  Then  in  a  voice  of  sombre  and  exalted 
determination  the  young  Thuringian  continued:  "I  have 
failed.  But  there  are  ten  thousand  behind  me.  One  will 
arise  and  do  what  I  have  failed  to  do. " 

"Ah?    Enverite?" 

The  boy's  last  words  had  an  exaggerated  if  not  a  false 
air.  Yet  they  did  not  resemble  words  learned  by  rote. 

Napoleon  considered  him  attentively  and  again  he 
changed  his  tactics;  for  he  had  now  begun  to  regard  this 
extraordinary  youth  as  an  adversary  whom  he  wished  to 
defeat  on  his  own  ground.  This  he  could  only  achieve  by 
convincing  him  that  he  was  in  error. 

"What  books  do  you  read?" 


104  Schonbrunn 

"History." 

"Whose  history?" 

"Schiller's." 

' '  Skiller's  ?    I  do  not  know  him. ' ' 

He  looked  around.  Dam,  who  had  made  himself  fa- 
miliar with  German  literature,  could  have  easily  solved  the 
Emperor's  perplexity;  but  to-day  he  was  at  Znaim  super- 
vising some  orders  relative  to  the  accoutrement  of  the  Fifth 
Corps,  Massena's. 

"You  are  young,"  Napoleon  said,  trying  another  tack; 
"and  the  young  read  poetry.  Whose  poetry  do  you  read? " 

"Schiller's." 

"Skiller?  Comment?  Again  Skiller!  Who  is  this 
Skiller?  Is  it  a  pen-name?  Was  he  at  Erfurt?" 

He  looked  interrogatively  and  angrily  at  Rapp;  but 
Rapp,  if  he  had  heard  of  the  author  of  Die  Rduber  and 
Wilhelm  Tell,  knew  no  more  of  the  author  of  the  Revolt  of  the 
Netherlands  and  The  Thirty  Years'  War  than  did  Berthier 
or  Duroc.  No  one  could  tell  Napoleon  who  "Skiller"  was. 
Was  he  perhaps  a  political  incendiary — one  of  the  scores 
whose  pamphlets  had  been  seized  by  his  police  and,  under 
Fouche"'s  orders,  translated  and  abbreviated  for  his  private 
study? 

Quick  as  light  Napoleon's  mind  fastened  on  this  hypo- 
thesis, and  thinking  to  confuse  the  prisoner  and  extort  the 
truth,  his  suspicion  leapt  out  in  the  next  question: 

"You  are  one  of  the  Illuminati?  You  wish  to  imitate 
Brutus?  A  German  Brutus!  What  madness!" 

But  the  boy  denied  that  he  even  knew  what  an  Illumi- 
nat  was. 

"But  Germany!  You  believe  in  the  destiny  of  Germany 
and  are  prepared  to  die  for  that  belief?  You  are  very 
singular!" 

He  laughed  his  mirthless,  shrill  Corsican  laugh.  Staps 
made  no  answer. 


The  Assassin  105 

Hulin,  who  now  stood  with  Berthier  in  the  inner  circle 
about  the  Emperor,  had  become  morbidly  interested  in  the 
interrogatory.  For  in  this  boy's  face,  bearing  and  action 
he  saw  something  that  unaccountably  reminded  him  of 
Camille  Desmoulins  and  that  amazing  day,  the  I2th  July, 
when  from  the  Boulevard  in  front  of  the  Cafe  de  Foy  he 
gave  to  the  citizens  of  Paris  and  to  Europe  the  insignia  of 
Liberty — the  green  cocarde.  Hulin  was  himself  young 
again;  there  was  electricity  in  the  air  and  Freedom's  war- 
thunder  in  his  blood  and  his  arteries ;  battle-cries  of  triumph 
were  splitting  the  heavens,  the  shouting  of  an  emancipated 
people  storming  the  Bastille,  the  citadel  and  the  symbol  of 
the  despotism  crushing  the  world. 

Yet  he  had  been  one  of  the  foremost  to  hail  in  Bonaparte 
a  greater  than  Danton  or  Desmoulins,  a  greater  than  Mira- 
beau  or  Hoche,  than  Marceau  or  Barnave. 

But  now,  this  instant,  here  in  the  palace  of  the  Habsburg 
tyrants,  another  and  a  ghastly  memory  assailed  him — a 
secret  shame,  an  enduring  remorse,  over  which  his  perplexed 
mind  for  the  past  five  years  had  brooded  and  brooded. 
It  was  the  part  that  under  the  Consul  Bonaparte's  orders 
he  himself  had  played  in  the  murder  of  the  due  d'Enghien. 
And  as  the  picture  of  the  Bastille  faded  another  pic- 
ture took  its  place — the  March  night  at  Valenciennes,  the 
open  grave,  the  firing-party  and  the  fosse,  the  trial,  the 
murder  and  the  torchlight  burial — the  last  of  the  Condes 
thrust  into  that  ignoble  sepulchre. 

A  fearful  presentiment  seized  him.  He  turned  aside 
and  with  an  immense  weight  upon  his  brow  and  shoulders 
he  stood  leaning  by  a  window. 

VI 

Meanwhile,  Napoleon  had  perceived  the  error  he  had 
made  in  conducting  this  enquiry  before  so  many  witnesses. 


io6  Schonbrunn 

He  could  not  now  doubt  the  reality  of  the  danger  which  he 
had  run.  This  was  no  faked-up  plot,  nor  was  it  the  hys- 
teria of  the  beautiful  but  depraved  Countess  Ortski,  Lord 
Paget's  mistress,  who  had  bought  a  dagger  from  a  jeweller 
in  the  Ludwiggasse  and,  pretending  an  assignation  with 
the  French  Emperor,  had  declared  to  everyone  in  the  shop 
willing  to  listen,  "This  night  Austria  shall  be  avenged." 
Upon  being  informed  of  the  occurrence  Bonaparte  had 
contented  himself  with  remarking,  "The  noble  Countess 
confounds  the  parts  of  Rahab  and  Judith,"  and  all  Vienna 
had  laughed  and  for  a  day  the  French  Emperor  had  been 
popular.  But  this  he  had  neither  the  wish  nor  the  power 
to  treat  lightly.  The  assassin  had  come  as  a  petitioner, 
and,  at  Schonbrunn,  he  had  always  been  willing  to  consider 
petitions;  that  morning,  too,  he  had  been  unarmed,  and 
though  the  secret  coat-of-mail  he  habitually  wore  might 
have  defended  his  breast,  his  throat  and  face  were  exposed 
to  an  assailant  who  had  had  the  craft  to  get  within  a  few 
feet  of  him.  Napoleon  now  distinctly  remembered  the 
vicious  glitter  of  steel  from  which  the  sudden  entry  of  the 
wounded  from  Molk  had  diverted  his  attention. 

Yes,  the  wing  of  Azrael  had  brushed  past  him,  and  nearer 
than  at  Ratisbon,  though  that  was  near. 

And,  always  various  in  his  emotions  as  in  his  projects, 
Napoleon  felt  a  new  impulse  rise  within  him.  It  was  the  de- 
sire to  turn  to  profit  the  mistake  which  he  had  made  in  thus 
examining  Staps  in  public.  It  was  the  desire  to  convince 
once  more  the  assassin  and  his  own  officers  of  the  greatness 
and  supernatural  character  of  his  destiny,  in  which  he 
himself  at  this  period,  with  a  mixture  of  calculation  and 
mysticism,  most  deeply  believed.  For  might  not  the 
fanatic's  words  have  awakened  some  slumbering  doubts  of 
that  destiny  in  the  minds  of  his  listeners — in  Republicans 
like  Hulin,  for  instance,  in  half-convinced  Royalists  like 
Favrol  and  Montesquieu,  in  the  advocates  of  a  peace  policy 


The  Assassin  107 

like  Berthier  and  Rapp,  Massena  and  Davout,  anxious 
only  to  enjoy  in  security  the  riches  and  honours  they  owed 
to  him?  He  felt  too  all  the  injured  man's  desire  to 
refute  unjust  calumny.  He  felt  also  the  tyrant's  implac- 
able, primitive  impulse  to  strike  to  earth  his  accuser. 

These  thoughts  had  not  occupied  Napoleon's  brain  two 
seconds  of  time  when,  to  his  astonishment,  the  young 
Thuringian  burst  into  a  torrent  of  unintelligible  words. 
Napoleon  forgot  his  part  and  turning  to  Rapp  he  asked 
angrily:  "What  is  the  sce'lerat  saying?" 

"You  have  broken  every  condition  of  Pressburg.  You 
lied:  you  perjured  yourself:  you  extorted  20,000,000 
gulden  beyond  the  stipulated  sum:  you  did  not  withdraw 
your  troops  though  you  swore  to  withdraw  them:  you 
retained  the  fortresses  in  Friuli  and  forced  an  open  passage 
into  Dalmatia.  What  right  had  you  to  threaten  my 
Emperor  when  he  attempted  to  make  every  man  a  soldier? 
Is  not  every  man  in  France  a  soldier?  You,  you  only  are 
the  cause  of  this  bloodshed  and  this  fury  of  war!" 

These  accusations  were  not  spoken  consecutively,  but 
collected  by  Rapp  from  the  young  Thuringian's  indignant 
utterances. 

In  an  instant  Napoleon  was  in  the  whirl  of  self-defence. 

A  political  crowd  Napoleon  could  never  dominate  nor 
even  address,  as  Brumaire  had  proved;  but  a  single  in- 
dividual with  a  crowd  looking  on — there  was  the  field  of  his 
oratory,  as  his  brothers  and  his  own  ministers  and  the  am- 
bassadors of  foreign  nations — Metternich,  for  instance,  in 
the  memorable  scene  in  February  last,  and  Lord  Whit- 
worth  at  the  rupture  of  the  Peace  of  Amiens — had  expe- 
rienced. The  stage  was  now  set  for  a  similar  scene. 

"I  am  the  executeur  testamentaire  de  la  Revolution.  I 
wish  nothing  but  the  good  of  humanity.  How  then  could 
I  be  the  enemy  of  your  country?  Are  not  the  Germans 
men?  You  have  studied  history,  you  know  the  causes  of 


io8  Schonbrunn 

wars;  for  history  is  the  only  philosophy;  it  is  the  invisible 
axis  upon  which  eternity  revolves.  Why  did  Austria 
raise  half  a  million  men  as  soon  as  I  was  beyond  the  Pyr- 
enees? English  gold  and  the  criminal  folly  of  your  Stadions 
and  Maximilians  led  your  Emperor  astray.  These  are  the 
true  disturbers  of  the  peace  of  nations.  I  alone  can  give 
tranquillity  to  Europe  and  the  world.  Why  then  do  you 
wish  to  assassinate  me?" 

The  young  Thuringian  gazed  at  him  in  amazement. 
He  was  alternately  fascinated  and  repelled  by  the  changes 
in  Napoleon's  expression,  the  rapidity  of  his  utterance,  the 
raucous  Corsican  accent  thridding  along  the  syllables, 
the  trembling  of  his  left  leg,  the  convulsive  movement  of 
the  lower  part  of  the  face,  the  gleam  of  small  white  teeth 
above  all,  by  the  thrust  forward  of  the  tremendous  chin, 
which  gave  a  wild-beast  appearance  to  the  countenance. 
He  forgot  himself  and  did  not  understand  a  syllable  of 
Rapp's  interpretation. 

But  the  waiting  silence,  the  fiery  impatience  in  Bona- 
parte's eyes,  showed  him  that  he  was  meant  to  answer. 
He  therefore  repeated  his  former  statement. 

"You  are  the  enemy  of  the  world.  Had  I  destroyed  you 
I  should  have  won  undying  glory  and  set  German}'-  free." 

"Comment?  After  what  I  have  said?  You  must  be 
mad,  or  ill."] 

And  again  going  out  of  his  r61e  he  addressed  himself  to 
Rapp. 

"Repeat  to  him  that  I  wish  to  give  peace  and  unity  to 
Europe  and  happiness  to  all  men,  that  the  princes  and  rulers 
of  his  country  are  my  friends,  and  as  he  is  a  reader  of  poetry 
and  a  student,  tell  him  that  the  professors  of  his  universities 
and  M.  Wieland  and  M.  Goett  (i.e.,  Goethe),  have  accepted 
from  me  the  Legion  of  Honour. " 

Here  the  prisoner  listened  attentively  to  Rapp,  who  now 
spoke  slowly,  distinctly  enunciating  his  words;  and  as  he 


The  Assassin  109 

proceeded  the  boy's  face  clouded,  and  when  he  heard  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour  accepted  by  Goethe  his  head  sank.  He 
knew  the  reverence  with  which  Schiller  looked  up  to  the 
greatest  poet  of  the  German  tongue,  and  at  Erfurt  with  a 
kind  of  awful  reverence  he  had  looked  forward  to  the  seeing 
of  Goethe  for  the  first  time.  With  a  sick  misery  he  re- 
collected once  more  the  day  on  which  he  had  seen  him 
walking  arm  in  arm  with  a  French  marshal  under  the  lime 
trees  of  the  esplanade.  He  had  looked  for  that  marshal 
amongst  Napoleon's  guards  on  his  first  visit  to  Schonbrunn 
and  he  had  been  told  that  he  had  died  in  battle.  The 
recollection  seemed  to  confirm  the  hideous  assertion  that 
he  now  heard  for  the  first  time,  and  under  what  circum- 
stances! He  saw  again  Goethe's  figure,  erect  and  majestic, 
and  his  countenance  like  that  of  a  god  in  its  calm  and  in  its 
inscrutable  serenity.  Could  that  lofty  spirit  indeed  have 
accepted  a  decoration  from  the  dwarf  there  who  had  barked 
unmeaning  words  at  him?  There  must,  he  reasoned,  be 
some  explanation — a  vision  beyond  his  reach.  Goethe 
could  not  be  a  time-server  or  the  flatterer  of  brutish  power. 
But  he  was  too  tired  to  think.  He  had  not  slept  for  three 
nights,  nerving  himself  for  his  great  task,  his  "sacrifice," 
the  deed  which  God  Himself  had  laid  upon  him,  the  ordeal 
against  which  he  had  struggled,  resisting  the  angel  of  God. 
For  he  was  young  and  loved  his  life  and  loved  beautiful 
things,  poetry  and  the  song  of  birds  and  the  long  day's 
dreaming  and  the  vistas  which  his  Wanderjahre  opened  up 
before  him  when  his  years  of  apprenticeship  at  Erfurt  should 
be  terminated.  But  all  this  was  now  over;  his  course  was 
finished.  He  had  obeyed  the  high  command :  he  had  failed, 
and  he  had  now  only  to  die. 

A  voice  roused  him  from  his  reverie. 

It  was  Napoleon's,  and  it  was  instantly  followed  by 
Rapp's  interpretation,  addressed  to  him  once  more  in  the 
first  person. 


no  Schonbrunn 

"If  I  pardon  you,  if  I  give  you  your  liberty,  will  you 
acknowledge  your  error  and  will  you  give  up  these  frantic 
principles?  Also  will  you  tell  me  the  names  of  those  who 
instigated  or  hired  you  to  attempt  this  crime?  You  are 
young;  you  may  have  many  happy  years  to  live,  marriage 
with  the  woman  you  love,  and  success.  Why  should  you 
surrender  all?  You  are  young  to  die.  Give  up  the  names 
of  your  accomplices. " 

The  insult  was  like  the  lash  of  a  whip.  The  prisoner 
raised  his  head  which  like  that  of  an  abashed  girl  had  sunk 
on  his  breast.  The  blue  eyes  flashed  with  an  extraordinary 
fire  and  he  spoke  now  with  an  energy  that  thrilled  his  mean- 
ing across  the  foreign  words  to  Napoleon  himself  and  to  the 
heart  of  every  man  in  that  room. 

"I  repent  nothing:  I  regret  nothing,  except  that  I  have 
failed  to  kill  you.  I  have  no  accomplices  and  no  instigators. 
I  have  been  in  Vienna  eleven  days  and  I  have  not  spoken  to 
anyone  except  to  the  landlord  in  whose  house  I  lodge.  This 
deed  was  not  my  seeking.  Two  months  ago  God  laid  this 
command  on  me,  but  at  that  time  I  did  not  wish  to  obey. 
Night  by  night  I  prayed  to  my  heavenly  Father  that  I 
might  not  have  this  thing  to  do ;  yes,  I  hardened  my  heart, 
I  wept  and  entreated  that  it  might  be  given  to  another. 
Then  God  became  angry  and  I  was  most  wretched,  for  I 
was  estranged  from  my  God,  my  Father  in  heaven  was 
angry  with  me.  And  I  swore  a  dreadful  oath  that  if  He 
would  but  forgive  me  and  be  reconciled  to  me,  I  would  do 
His  will.  If  you  set  me  free  to-day  or  to-morrow  or  in  a 
year  or  at  any  time  I  would  still  seek  to  kill  you;  for  you 
are  the  enemy  of  God  and  of  all  men ;  yes,  you  are  a  tyrant, 
the  oppressor  of  Germany,  and  to  kill  you  is  to  serve  my 
country  and  to  pacify  my  offended  God. " 

It  was  Napoleon's  turn  to  flinch.  Disconcerted,  he  stood 
for  some  seconds  silent.  He  looked  scrutinizingly  at  the 
speaker,  and  with  a  cold  smile  said  briefly: 


The  Assassin  in 

"No  one  instigated  you?  You  have  no  accomplices, 
you  say?  Who  then  are  the  ten  thousand  behind  you? 
You  are  delirious.  You  contradict  yourself. " 

But  mastered  by  his  own  impatience  and  by  a  new  and 
more  plausible  theory  which  had  taken  possession  of  him, 
he  did  not  wait  for  the  answer,  but  without  transition  and 
without  a  gesture,  gave  the  order: 

"Send  for  Corvisart." 

The  boy  tugged  at  his  bonds  as  though  he  would  have 
drawn  his  hands  across  his  eyes — a  pathetic,  confused 
gesture.  It  was  not  tears;  but  a  cloudiness  that  came  in 
front  of  his  thoughts.  He  could  not  see  the  answer  to 
Napoleon's  accusation  of  self-contradiction.  He  knew  that 
there  was  no  contradiction ;  that  in  saying  that  ten  thousand 
stood  behind  him  he  meant  to  express  his  conviction  of  Ger- 
many's resolve  to  destroy  the  tyrant  in  one  way  or  in  an- 
other. He  was  about  to  say  this,  he  had  even  turned  to 
Napoleon,  but  an  immense  fatigue  came  down  on  him — 
what  did  it  matter  what  that  dwarf  with  the  huge  un- 
shapely chest  and  head  thought  or  said  or  did? 


VII 


No  history  illustrates  more  vividly  the  tendency  of  a 
high  cause  to  work  fanaticism  in  the  mind  than  that  of 
Friedrich  Staps. 

Born  in  1792,  at  Eisenach  in  Thuringia,  he  had  passed 
his  boyhood  partly  in  his  native  city  under  the  shadow 
of  the  Wartburg,  partly  at  Naumburg.  The  features  of 
his  home  and  school  life  were  the  features  habitual  at 
that  period  in  every  German  pastor's  family — simple  and 
pure  manners,  deep  piety,  cleanliness,  truth-speaking  and 
reverence.  His  father  had  studied  enough  Latin  and  Greek 
to  make  the  heroes  of  Livy  and  Plutarch  a  little  nearer 
and  more  vivid  than  they  can  ever  be  to  the  reader 


1 12  Schonbrunn 

totally  ignorant  of  the  classics,  and  he  early  made  the 
names  of  Leonidas  and  Miltiades  as  familiar  to  the  boy 
as  those  of  Luther  and  Melancthon,  CEcolampadius  and 
Zwingli. 

As  a  child  Friedrich  was  sickly  but  impetuous,  undis- 
ciplined and  wayward;  yet  at  nine  he  had  learned  at  his 
mother's  knees  to  repeat  her  favourite  passages  from  Klop- 
stock's  Messias.  But  the  religious  emotion  kindled  by  the 
subject  and  the  solemn  rhythm  of  the  verses  became  already 
in  his  boyhood  secondary  to  the  pride  that  as  a  Thuringian 
he  felt  for  Germany's  great  poet.  This  pride  became  an 
enthusiasm  as  the  years  passed.  His  reading  extended 
itself;  he  became  acquainted  one  by  one  with  the  living 
writers  of  the  golden  age  of  German  poetry — Lessing, 
Schiller,  Uhland,  Jacobi,  Goethe — and  the  fixed  if  secret 
resolve  took  possession  of  his  mind  as  he  grew  towards 
manhood  to  take  his  place  amongst  that  sacred  band.  He 
too  would  be  a  poet. 

Suddenly  the  horror  burst  over  Germany.  Within  ten 
months  the  entire  German  race,  so  to  speak,  was  subject 
to  one  of  the  bloodiest  inundations  in  human  annals. 

The  effect  of  the  defeats  of  1805  and  1806,  from  Ulm 
to  Jena,  on  the  young  Thuringian  was  harrowing.  He 
could  not  eat;  he  could  not  sleep.  His  studies  and  his 
hopes  were  abandoned.  He  went  about  the  village  or 
the  woods  drooping  and  listless.  Then  the  change  came. 
The  fragments  of  a  diary  written  three  years  later  have 
preserved  to  us  the  nature  of  this  change. 

"From  the  Rhine  to  the  Oder,  from  the  Baltic  to  the 
Danube,  I  looked  and  I  saw  everywhere  men  in  chains. 
I  saw  Germany  like  a  beautiful  woman  in  an  Eastern  slave 
market  with  her  head  bent  before  a  savage  and  insulting 
tyrant.  An  invisible  sword  was  already  by  my  side.  I 
determined  to  set  her  free. " 

The   romantic   and    wild   scenery    of    his  early  home, 


The  Assassin  113 

steeped  in  the  legends  of  the  Middle  Age,  minnesinger 
and  crusader,  and  during  his  holidays  long  visits  to  his 
mother's  kindred  at  Detmold  near  the  Teutoberg  and  the 
field  of  the  Hermannsschlacht,  scene  of  the  heroism  of 
Arminius  and  the  destruction  of  Varus  and  his  legions, 
stimulated  the  emotions  of  anger,  resolution  and  despond- 
ency which  alternately  convulsed  the  boy's  mind.  What 
German  could  walk  in  the  templed  gloom  of  those  woods 
and  return  to  his  home  the  contented  thrall  of  a  Bonaparte? 

Poverty  and  the  necessity  of  choosing  a  means  of  liveli- 
hood, for  the  pastor  was  not  rich  and  there  were  five  other 
children,  tore  Friedrich  for  a  time  from  his  breedings; 
he  refused  to  study  theology,  "feeling  that  his  country 
would  yet  demand  from  him  a  service  incompatible  with  a 
pastor's  career."  But  he  abandoned  at  the  same  time  the 
cherished  dream  of  being  a  soldier.  Of  what  use  was  it  to 
become  a  soldier?  The  very  armies  of  Germany  might  at 
any  moment  be  ordered  to  enroll  themselves  beside  the 
hosts  of  the  tyrant.  Yet  every  thought  of  his  mind  was  of 
a  German  uprising  and  of  the  deliverance  of  his  country 
by  war.  The  poetry  of  Schiller,  especially  the  dramas  of 
Die  Yungfrau  and  Wilhelm  Tell  gave  precision  to  his  fluctuat- 
ing aspirations.  And  when  he  was  sixteen  he  saw  in  the 
secret  society  of  the  Tugendbund  or  League  of  Valour  a 
pledge  of  the  practical  realization  of  his  most  ardent  hopes. 

Suddenly  blow  on  blow  struck  those  hopes  to  the  ground. 
Stein,  in  whom  he  had  seen  at  once  the  craft  and  the 
heroism  of  Arminius,  was  flying  into  exile,  no  man  knew 
whither;  Hardenberg  had  been  bought;  the  diplomat  Haug- 
witz,  like  the  priest  Dalberg,  had  always  been  a  shuffler; 
the  spirit  of  the  heroic  Queen  of  Prussia  was  broken;  the 
princes  of  Germany  were  vying  with  each  other  in  banishing 
the  "patriots,"  or  in  surrendering  to  the  tyrant's  venge- 
ance all  suspected  of  sharing  the  aims  of  the  League  of 
Valour.  And  amidst  this  panic  of  treason  and  defection 

8 


ii4  Schonbrunn 

came  the  appalling  actual  defeats  of  1809  and  the  suppres- 
sion of  the  premature  revolts  of  Schill  and  Brunswick. 
Midnight  once  more  settled  over  Germany,  and  this  time 
it  seemed  for  ever.  Prussia  was  a  second  Poland.  The 
land  of  Frederick  was  partitioned  and  every  free  spirit 
banished.  Wurtemburg,  the  home  of  Suabian  heroism, 
was  handed  over  to  the  tyrant's  brother.  Saxony,  Bavaria, 
the  Rhine  region,  were  appanages  of  the  conqueror's 
splendour.  Austria,  bleeding  to  death  from  the  hideous 
stabs  of  Aspern-Essling  and  Wagram — what  could  Austria 
effect?  And  the  conqueror  was  still  in  his  prime  and  his 
legions  were  growing  in  multitude  year  by  year.  If  he 
lived  another  ten  years,  would  there  be  a  refuge  for  freedom 
on  this  planet  ? 

The  shadow  of  Napoleon  loomed  to  his  ardent  imagination 
more  portentous  than  the  half-fabulous  names  of  Sesostris 
and  Nebuchadnezzar.  A  newer  and  darker  design  gradually 
took  complete  possession  of  the  young  Thuringian's  soul — 
the  design  of  murdering  the  tyrant.  War  and  open  revolt 
were  useless;  for  in  this  Napoleon  there  was  something 
daimonic.  Such  a  deed  was  unprecedented  in  German 
history,  but  to  Staps'  inflamed  imagination  the  Napoleonic 
tyranny  was,  in  its  corroding  shame,  unprecedented  not 
only  in  German  but  in  human  history.  It  was  not  a  crime. 
Many  of  the  most  shining  names  in  history  were  those  of 
tyrannicides,  and  with  a  glow  of  ardour  which  lasted  for 
weeks  Friedrich  now  recollected  his  boyish  enthusiasm  for 
the  verses  which  enshrine  the  memory  of  Harmodius,  the 
murderer  of  Peisistratos,  the  tyrant  of  Athens. 

"  I  will  wreathe  my  sword  with  the  myrtle's  leaves, 
The  sword  that  reached  the  tyrant's  heart." 

When,  however,  he  turned  from  the  conception  to  the 
execution  of  his  murderous  design,  horror  seized  him,  and 
when  he  conquered  that  horror  and  saw  the  glory  of  the 


The  Assassin  115 

deed  in  the  dazzling  light  of  old  battlefields  and  heard 
his  own  name  spoken  in  wonder  by  millions  of  liberated 
Germans,  a  sense  of  his  own  incapacity  and  the  innumer- 
able difficulties  in  his  way  roused  again  the  very  horror 
that  he  had  recently  conquered.  All  was  despondency, 
and,  like  the  poet  Kleist  two  years  later,  Friedrich  Staps 
thought  of  self-destruction  as  a  means  of  escape  from  his 
own  intolerable  misery  and  the  misery  of  Germany. 

The  gloom  within  the  young  Thuringian's  mind  was 
aggravated  by  the  events  of  1809.  Austria  had  come  forth, 
and  Austria  had  fallen.  The  English  victories  in  Spain 
might  all  be  lies;  they  were  contradicted  in  every  French 
newspaper.  The  one  thing  certain  was  that  their  armies 
under  Sir  John  Moore  had  run  like  hares  the  instant 
Napoleon  crossed  the  Pyrenees. 

"  Night  must  it  be  ere  Friedland's  star  will  burn." 

Had  Napoleon  after  Znaim  concluded  the  treaty  and 
returned  to  France;  had  he  even  left  Germany  in  August, 
Friedrich  Staps  might  have  ended  his  days  by  suicide  or 
sunk  into  obscurity.  But  July  became  August  and  August 
September  and  still  the  tyrant  lingered  at  Schonbrunn — 
there  within  a  day's  journey — there  within  reach  of  a 
dagger.  Was  there  not  in  this  something  metaphysical? 

His  purpose  flamed  up  again.  And  it  flamed  up  in  a 
transfigured  glory.  The  cause  of  the  transfiguration  is 
hidden.  Nothing  in  his  manuscripts  reveals  the  process. 
It  may  have  been  a  chance  study  of  the  Old  Testament.  It 
may  have  been  a  fresh  reading  of  Schiller's  Die  Yungfrau. 
It  may  have  been  a  sermon  preached  by  Oberlin.  The 
result  is  clear.  The  God  of  his  father's  religion  and  of  his 
own  childhood,  the  God  of  whom  he  had  learned  in  his 
mother's  talk  when  the  hush  of  twilight  fell  with  sacred 
mysteriousness  over  river  and  valley,  added  His  mandate 


n6  Schonbrunn 

to  that  of  Tyrtseus  and  the  example  of  Roman  Brutus. 
The  Lord  God  of  Hosts  spoke  to  him  at  Erfurt  as  He  had 
spoken  to  Joan  Dare  at  Domremy — "Go  forth,  Friedrich 
Staps,  and  give  freedom  to  thy  fatherland!  Go  forth  and 
strike  down  the  evil  one!" 

The  new  design  thus  hallowed  he  did  not  hide  in  his  own 
breast  entirely.  Under  the  pledge  of  awful  secrecy  he  re- 
vealed his  divine  mission  to  Frederike  Neumann,  sprung, 
like  himself,  from  a  pastor's  family. 

She  went  home,  and  whether  in  weakness,  or,  infected 
by  his  heroism,  desirous  of  sharing  his  glory,  she  informed 
her  mother. 

Horror-struck,  the  latter  communicated  the  design  to  the 
pastor  himself,  and  Staps  was  forbidden  the  house.  The 
girl  was  at  the  same  time  sent  to  a  distant  province. 

Staps  was  thus  left  to  execute  his  fearful  design  alone. 

VIII 

Meantime,  waiting  for  Corvisart,  the  buzz  of  conversa- 
tion once  more  filled  the  room. 

Emotions  had  crystallized,  judgments  were  expressed. 
General  Hedouville,  one  of  Napoleon's  escort,  a  Frenchman 
with  the  soul  of  a  janizary,  fixed  his  flashing  black  eyes 
now  on  Napoleon,  now  on  the  prisoner.  He  seemed  quiver- 
ing with  impatience  for  the  order  to  cut  the  latter  in  pieces. 
Bertrand,  impulsive  and  theatrical,  gesticulated  violently, 
calling  heaven  to  witness  his  horror  at  the  crime.  The 
hussar  Lacourbe's  figure  towered  over  his  two  fellow-officers. 
He  maintained  his  air  of  haughty  superiority  which  dis- 
guises the  stupidity  of  the  mere  horseman.  When  Lacourbe 
was  mounted,  as  Savary  once  said,  the  brains  were  in 
front  of  the  saddle.  Bertrand  began  again  to  deplore  the 
recklessness  with  which  the  Emperor  continually  exposed 
himself. 


The  Assassin  117 

"At  Valladolid  six  months  ago  I  saw  him  with  my  own 
eyes  go  down  amongst  a  company  of  evil-looking  monks 
and  start  a  theological  discussion  upon  the  Inquisition. 
What  was  there  to  prevent  one  of  those  ruffians  from 
plunging  a  dagger  in  his  breast?  The  Pope  would  have 
beatified  him."  And  to-day,  this  young  German,  he 
could  bet,  had  been  egged  on  by  the  priests,  just  like  that 
Dominican  who  stabbed  Hubert,  the  Emperor's  valet,  at 
Burgos.  "The  Emperor  is  brave  as  a  lion;  but  he  ought  to 
think  of  us.  On  his  single  life  how  much  depends!" 

"Truly,"  said  Mouton,  with  humorous  sarcasm,  "how 
much,  how  very  much,  as  our  creditors  know!" 

The  young  dragoon  aide  who  had  lost  at  cards  groaned 
a  deep  assent.  In  every  heart  in  that  room  now  crouched 
the  question — "What  if  the  assassin's  dagger  had  actually 
reached  its  mark?  To  me  what  would  have  been  the 
consequences?" 

Some  looked  to  the  future  and  the  chances  of  a  new  regime, 
Jacobin  or  Constitutional;  some  remembered  Moreau  and 
mused  fugitively  on  his  designs  for  the  restoration  of  the 
Bourbons;  others  thought  of  Talleyrand  and  his  "legitimist" 
obsession.  Some  plotted  a  republic  in  which  they  them- 
selves might  play  a  political  r61e ;  some  again  quite  seriously 
thought  of  an  elective  empire,  the  ruler  being  chosen  by  the 
army.  Davout  or  Bernadotte  or  even  Murat  might  at 
once  succeed  Napoleon.  Some  again  contemplated  anx- 
iously the  risks  to  honours,  titles,  riches,  lands  which  any 
change  must  involve.  All,  however,  saw  in  Napoleon's 
death  the  certainty  of  a  temporary  peace,  and  for  peace 
every  man  in  that  room  was  longing. 

Napoleon,  his  brow  laden  with  thought,  was  again  walk- 
ing slowly  up  and  down.  He  was  not  unaware  of  the  loyal 
or  disloyal  thoughts  swarming  behind  those  eyes  that 
looked  at  him  with  so  much  affection  or  so  much  concern; 
he  was  old  in  the  experience  of  men;  the  human  heart  had 


n8  Schonbrunn 

little  that  was  ugly  to  reveal  to  him  now.  Their  fidelity  to 
him,  which  was  their  honour,  was  the  fidelity  of  brigands 
sworn  to  the  same  enterprise.  He  had  never  been  the  dupe 
of  the  hypocritical  codes  of  compassion  and  fraternal  love. 
The  ethics  of  the  tiger  were  the  ethics  of  man. 

Rapp,  meanwhile,  had  placed  himself  nearer  to  the 
prisoner.  His  return  to  the  language  of  his  own  boy- 
hood, or  something  sympathetic  in  Staps'  appearance,  was 
working  in  him  a  curious  change — pity,  or  at  least  under- 
standing. The  boy  himself  appeared  to  be  once  more 
unconscious  of  his  surroundings.  Now  and  then  he  tugged 
nervously  at  the  cords  fastening  his  hands.  They  had 
been  knotted  violently  and  awkwardly,  and  Rapp  saw  a 
bruise,  ragged-edged  and  bleeding,  on  one  of  the  wrists. 
His  hands  were  finely  made,  but,  like  his  face,  sunburnt. 
Swift  to  feel  sympathy  or  moved  by  some  suspicion  in  his 
own  mind,  he  now  said  to  Rapp  in  confidential  undertones 
and  in  German: 

"WhoisM.  Corvisart?" 

Rapp  did  not  at  once  answer ;  then  in  an  indifferent  tone 
he  said  curtly: 

"His  Majesty's  physician." 

At  once  the  prisoner's  countenance  was  all  excitement 
and  he  exclaimed  protestingly : 

"But  I  am  not  ill.     What  has  a  doctor  to  do  here?" 

He  turned  as  in  anger  towards  Napoleon,  who,  arrested 
by  the  question  and  Rapp's  answer,  had  stopped  in  his 
walk,  and  stood  eyeing  Rapp  and  his  prisoner.  He  seemed 
about  to  speak  when  the  doors  were  again  flung  open  and 
Corvisart  entered. 

IX 

Though  only  fifty-five  the  famous  physician  looked  a 
man  of  sixty.  His  quiet  dress,  decorated  only  with  the 


The  Assassin  119 

small  red  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  formed  a  con- 
trast to  the  blaze  of  uniforms,  just  as  the  intellectuality  of 
his  features  formed  a  contrast  to  the  manly  unintelligence 
which  characterized  most  of  the  officers,  making  him,  as 
it  were,  the  sole  companion  to  Bonaparte  in  that  room. 
His  naturally  keen  features  were  sharpened  by  suffering  or 
weariness,  and  his  eyes  were  tarnished. 

Savary,  wishing  to  oust  Rapp,  began  to  explain  the 
incident  to  the  physician,  but  Napoleon  interrupted  him  at 
once: 

"Corvisart,  here  is  a  patient  for  you.  Examine  him  and 
tell  me  what  you  think  of  his  state. " 

Uncertain  whether  it  was  a  mystification,  for  he  saw  no 
signs  of  sickness,  Corvisart  hesitated. 

"To  work!  To  work!"  the  Emperor  said  with  false 
gaiety,  and,  determined  to  prevent  Savary  or  Rapp  from 
impairing  the  impartiality  of  the  physician's  opinion,  he 
came  and  stood  near  and  pointed  to  Staps. 

Corvisart  looked  at  the  prisoner  in  silence,  then  placed 
his  fingers  on  his  pulse.  His  own  wrinkled  hands,  of  a 
dirtyish  red  colour  and  covered  on  the  back  with  sickly 
hair,  made  more  marked  the  boy's  smooth  and  delicately 
modelled  wrist.  Corvisart's  sight  was  dim,  but  his  touch 
was  marvellous  in  its  delicacy.  His  patient  felt  this  and 
looked  at  the  physician  in  trustful  naivete.  He  failed, 
however,  to  understand  the  questions  which  after  a  second 
or  two  Corvisart  put  to  him  in  low,  reassuring  tones. 

Receiving  no  answer,  Corvisart  once  more  felt  the  pulse, 
looked  into  the  boy's  eyes,  which  met  his  with  an  eager, 
almost  childlike  intensity,  and,  to  the  astonishment  of 
every  hearer,  the  prisoner  suddenly  said  in  bad  French : 

"Je  ne  suis  pas  malade,  monsieur,  pas  vrai?" — trans- 
lating the  last  words  literally  from  the  familiar  German 
idiom  "nicht  wahr. " — "  I  am  not  ill  am  I?" 

In  the  strung  state  of  the  onlookers'  nerves,  had  a  deaf 


120  Schonbrunn 

mute  suddenly  spoken  the  effect  could  not  have  been  more 
instantaneous. 

Smiling,  Corvisart  was  about  to  reply,  but  the  Emperor 
by  a  gesture  indicated  that  he  was  to  speak  to  him,  and  to 
speak  to  him  only. 

"No,  your  Majesty,  he  does  not  seem  to  me  ill.  The 
pulse  is  irregular,  wavering  a  little,  but  nervousness  would 
explain  that." 

' '  You  are  certain ?    Be  careful. ' ' 

Impatient  a  little — for  as  he  afterwards  told  Duroc,  he 
imagined  that  he  had  to  do  only  with  a  Viennese  student 
who,  in  his  eagerness  to  see  the  parade,  had  forced  his  way 
past  a  sentry  or,  as  had  happened  before,  had  hidden  in  the 
grounds  all  night — Corvisart  again  examined  Staps  and 
again  took  his  wrist. 

"It  is  quite  certain,  sire;  he  is  suffering  from  nothing 
except  a  slight  shock  to  the  nerves. " 

"Well,  my  good  Corvisart,  this  youngster  has  just  at- 
tempted to  murder  me.  How  do  you  explain  that  ?  Eh  ? 
Is  that  the  mark  of  a  sound  brain? "  And  in  malicious  glee 
he  took  the  physician  by  the  ear. 

Napoleon's  reply  may  or  may  not  have  surprised  Cor- 
visart. His  manner  betrayed  nothing.  The  steel-grey 
eyes  remained  steady,  nor  did  he  drop  the  assassin's  wrist 
in  horror.  Corvisart,  indeed,  had  long  since  come  to  see 
in  all  life  a  malady;  and  now,  before  Bonaparte's  irritating 
insistence  on  Staps'  madness,  his  mind  in  a  tranced  flash  had 
darted  across  the  mental  phases  of  Napoleon's  own  career. 
To  Corvisart,  Napoleon,  the  greatest  man  on  earth,  was  a 
sick  man;  and  in  the  genius  which  convulsed  a  world  he  saw, 
point  by  point,  the  progress  of  two  maladies,  frightfully 
interlaced,  epilepsy  and  cancer.  The  first  had  triumphed 
in  Bonaparte's  youth ;  in  the  melancholia  of  Valence,  in  the 
erotomania  kindled  by  Josephine  Beauharnais,  who  to  Cor- 
visart had,  as  to  a  confessor,  revealed  every  secret  of  the 


The  Assassin  121 

alcove,  every  secret  of  her  "maniac  lover  "  And  now  in 
mid-life  canceroid  tendencies  were  declaring  themselves. 

"Which  is  the  true  madman — the  young  assassin  or  the 
middle-aged  world-tyrant,  his  victim?" 

The  problem  roused  all  Corvisart's  interest  in  the 
pathology  of  the  human  mind.  During  the  recent  cam- 
paign he  had  had  opportunity  enough  of  indulging  that 
interest.  To  the  prolonged  rage  of  battle  and  its  effects 
on  the  human  mind  had  been  added,  during  the  hideous 
weeks  in  Lobau,  the  ravages  of  typhus.  Hospital  fevers 
were  peculiarly  malignant  in  type.  The  Danube  was  in 
flood.  The  war  of  the  elements  imitated  the  warfare  of 
men.  Thunderstorms  alternated  with  periods  of  torrid 
heat  or  continuous  rains.  The  cases  of  madness  and 
cerebral  affections  were  unusually  numerous  and  violent. 
That  of  Pfeister,  the  Emperor's  body-servant,  had  been 
the  most  painful.  Distracted  by  over-excitement  and  the 
terrific  cannonade  of  Wagram,  he  had,  on  the  day  of  the 
battle,  rushed  shrieking  into  the  woods,  and  was  found  four 
days  afterwards  a  gibbering  madman,  gnawing  the  root  of 
a  tree  whilst  he  crouched  stark-naked  in  a  grave  which  he 
had  dug  with  his  finger-nails.  The  contagion  had  spread. 
Fortunately  the  Spaniard,  Esquirol,  had  at  that  very  period 
abolished  the  savage  custom  of  loading  the  mad  with  chains 
and  pinioning  them  to  an  iron  staple  in  their  solitary 
dreadful  cells.  Corvisart  had  been  one  of  the  first,  during 
the  Wagram  campaign,  to  adopt  a  humaner  treatment. 

That  Napoleon  himself  had  been  affected  by  the  tainted 
physical  and  the  tainted  moral  atmosphere  the  physician 
had  not  a  doubt.  His  silences,  his  transports  of  rage,  his 
bursts  of  garrulous  confidence,  recalled  the  consular  period 
and  the  soliloquies  of  Pont-au-Faix;  whilst  the  recrudes- 
cence of  his  passion  for  Madame  Walewska  recalled  only 
too  faithfully  the  erotomaniac  infatuation  for  the  over-ripe 
charms  of  Josephine.  And  at  this  very  moment,  surveying 


122  Schonbrunn 

the  Emperor  furtively,  Corvisart,  to  his  anxiety,  detected 
symptoms  which  were  rarely  misleading — the  earthy  com- 
plexion, the  toneless  gaze,  and  at  intervals  a  faint  yellowish 
foam  at  the  corners  of  the  mouth,  which  now  began  to  twitch 
incessantly. 

"  Bigre — this  is  my  real  patient, "  he  muttered  to  himself, 
seized  again  by  the  same  presentiment  as  some  seconds 
ago. 

Napoleon,  meanwhile,  had  resumed  his  fevered  walk  to 
and  fro.  He  desired  to  prove  on  the  spot  that  Staps  was 
insane.  This,  he  considered,  was  the  only  answer  that  he 
could  make  to  Staps'  accusations  which,  he  imagined,  had 
affected  some  of  his  suite,  especially  Rapp  and  the  republi- 
can Hulin.  Profoundly  sceptical  of  man's  wish  for  truth 
in  any  department  of  human  activity,  how  was  he  to  trust 
to  the  silent  eloquence  of  fact  or  to  the  tardy  justice  of  time 
to  eradicate  these  accusations?  Again,  he  desired  to  hide 
from  his  staff  and  if  possible  from  Corvisart  himself,  the 
distinction  of  this  from  the  former  attempts  at  assassina- 
tion or  former  plots,  imaginary  or  real,  which  Fouche  had 
from  time  to  time  unravelled  or  pretended  to  unravel.  All 
these  were  tainted  with  personal  ends.  But  here  he  was 
confronted  by  something  new,  something  disconcerting,  in- 
explicable. 

"England,  the  cabinet  of  St.  James,  is  not  in  this,"  he 
told  himself  in  the  interval  of  intense  meditation.  "This 
is  German  only." 

And  in  that  German  youth  there  was  something  of  the 
ancient  world,  something  Greek,  as  he  stood  there,  negli- 
gently scornful,  it  seemed,  his  head  again  drooping  a  lit- 
tle on  one  side,  in  fatigue  not  in  shame,  the  eyes  lowered 
and  half-closed,  yet  fixed,  musing  on  things  beyond  Bona- 
parte's range — or  perhaps,  he  suddenly  said  to  himself,  med- 
itating merely  his  frustrated  attempt,  or  the  resumption  of 
it  at  some  future  time — or  even  now,  now  and  here  in  this 


The  Assassin  123 

room?  Why  not?  Seizing  with  a  leopard-bound  some 
weapon,  why  should  he  not  complete  the  design? 

Napoleon  had  the  heavy  sickening  sensation  of  a  stab; 
he  felt  the  dagger  point  dully  searching  the  fibres  about  his 
heart,  and  ever  the  victim  at  least  for  a  period  of  his  own 
vivid  fancies,  he  stepped  back  involuntarily — so  deadly,  yet 
so  incomprehensible  and  portentous  was  the  force  of  hate 
or  scorn  that  now  seemed  to  encircle  or  to  emanate  from 
the  prisoner's  vicinity. 

But  was  Corvisart  the  man  to  aid  him  in  declaring  mad 
a  sane  man  even  in  Austria  ? 

He  wheeled  round  and  looked  fixedly  at  the  physician 
standing  imperturbable,  quietly  observant,  his  head  slightly 
bent  in  ironic  courtier-fashion.  For  several  seconds  Napo- 
leon did  not  speak,  did  not  stir,  but,  a  lion  about  to  spring, 
stood  studying  the  man  whom,  rightly  or  wrongly,  he  classed 
with  Hulin  as  "an  unperverted  Jacobin."  Then  with  a 
brief  gesture  pointing  to  the  prisoner,  he  dropped  rather 
than  spoke  the  words: 

"Take  him  away. " 

And  at  a  sign  from  Savary,  Friedrich  Staps,  accompanied 
by  the  two  aides-de-camp,  walked  with  a  light  step  from 
the  room,  and,  transferred  to  the  gendarmes  waiting  out- 
side he  passed  from  Schonbrunn  and  from  the  general  ob- 
servation and  knowledge  of  men  for  ever. 

Napoleon  being  Napoleon,  it  was  impossible  for  him 
not  to  observe  that  the  Thuringian  had  neither  looked 
round  nor  exhibited  the  slightest  curiosity  in  his  imperial 
person,  as  though,  lifted  above  the  grandeurs  and  distinc- 
tions of  time,  his  thoughts  were  bent  only  upon  the  dark- 
ness or  upon  the  light  whither  he  was  moving,  and  at  how 
frightful  a  speed ! 

"  He  is  young  to  die. " 

Berthier  alone  caught  these  words  which  Napoleon  spoke 
carelessly,  yet  in  momentary  compunction.  The  boy's 


124  Schonbrunn 

simplicity  and  dignity,  like  that  of  a  wounded  duellist  who 
knows  he  has  to  die  but  studies  to  bear  himself  greatly,  had 
extorted  his  admiration.  Intrepidity,  indeed,  was  now 
almost  the  only  quality  which  could  excite  admiration  in 
Bonaparte.  Every  other  admiration  was  dried  up  in 
him;  but  this  boy  had  intrepidity. 


As  soon  as  the  prisoner  had  been  removed,  Napoleon's 
suite,  princes,  dukes,  marshals  and  generals,  with  a  single 
elan  crowded  about  the  Emperor  with  words  or  cries  of 
felicitation,  each  according  to  his  temperament,  his  real  or 
feigned  enthusiasm.  Napoleon's  well-known  willingness  to 
receive  petitions  made  the  indignation,  above  all  in  soldiers, 
very  sincere. 

He  quickly  silenced  their  empressement,  and  turned  to 
Corvisart. 

"You  are  certain  he  knows  what  he  is  doing?" 

Corvisart's  face  had  assumed  the  morose  aspect  which 
it  had  worn  throughout  the  campaign.  Napoleon  put  it 
down  to  his  jealousy  of  Larrey,  made  a  baron  after  Lobau. 

"Quite  certain,  your  Majesty." 

"Not  a  trace  of  mania — not  even  of  religious  mania?" 

Corvisart's  smile  was  like  a  sneer. 

"Who  can  tell  the  bounds  of  madness?  And  religion, 
sire,  is  never  far  from  madness,  at  least  in  a  German.  They 
are  a  nation  of  dreamers  and  idealists.  Even  their  scien- 
tists here  in  Vienna  talk  as  if  the  soul  were  a  distinct  entity 
— a  guest  in  this  inn,  the  body." 

"Ah?" 

Napoleon  again  looked  at  him  scrutinisingly.  He  did 
not  like  the  answer.  It  savoured  of  Jacobinism.  And  he 
did  not  like  Corvisart's  bearing. 

Born  of  a  Romanist  family,  and,  like  Duroc,  a  native  of 
the  Ardennes,  Corvisart  had  lost  his  faith  in  the  Revolution 


The  Assassin  125 

without  finding  it  possible  to  believe  in  the  Empire;  but 
from  '93  he  had  kept  at  least  one  conviction,  which  time 
only  strengthened  in  its  bitterness — the  conviction  ex- 
pressed by  Fouche's  inscription,  carved  in  that  year  of  the 
Terror  upon  every  cemetery  in  France — "Death  is  an 
eternal  sleep."  Destined  for  the  law  in  his  youth,  but 
passionate  for  science,  above  all  for  the  writings  of  Buffon 
and  Cuvier,  he  had  by  a  bold  device  freed  himself  from  its 
hateful  drudgery,  and  hearing  at  Brussels  some  lectures  on 
anatomy,  had  seen  in  that  the  path  to  the  knowledge  for 
which  he  thirsted.  At  the  house  of  Barras  he  had  met 
that  other  perpetual  malade,  Josephine  de  Beauharnais, 
and,  consulted  by  her,  he  had  become  an  habitue  of  her 
own  and  Barras'  circle,  and  there  in  '95  had  met  the  hun- 
gry, threadbare,  taciturn,  stiff-mannered,  provincial  artil- 
leryman, Bonaparte.  His  attitude  towards  the  Emperor 
had  retained  something  of  that  first  relationship. 

Divining  some  intention  in  the  Emperor's  persistence 
and  wishing  also  to  disarm  his  suspicions,  he  now  said: 
"But  I  have  not  seen  much  of  the  patient,  your  Majesty. 
I  should  like  to  examine  him  again.  There  may  be  a  latent 
neVropathie." 

Napoleon's  brow  cleared.  "Go,  my  good  Corvisart,  go. 
Talk  with  him  in  the  guard-house,  sit  beside  him,  question 
him,  win  his  confidence,  speak  to  him  of  his  home  and  of 
his  childhood,  of  his  friends.  The  wild  writings  of  the 
Illuminati  and  the  ideologues  of  Weimar  and  Berlin  have 
perverted  him." 

He  took  Savary  aside,  spoke  to  him  some  rapid  words, 
gave  instructions.  Taking  Corvisart  with  him  the  due  de 
Rovigo  then  left  the  presence. 

XI 

Napoleon  resumed  his  pacing  of  the  floor.  His  false 
calm  gradually  disappeared.  His  features  worked  inces- 


126  Schonbrunn 

santly;  his  glances  darted  suspicion.  He  seemed  ringed 
in  by  traitors.  England  was  forgotten.  He  had  before  his 
imagination  a  more  insidious  peril. 

This  was  the  Tugendbund,  the  Bond  of  Valour,  the 
League  of  Virtue,  that  singular  secret  society  which  was 
everywhere  in  Germany,  but  everywhere  disappeared  the 
instant  it  was  approached.  For  nearly  two  years,  by  the 
aid  of  Davout's  spies  and  Fouche's  police,  he  had  been 
observing  its  subterranean  operations.  Its  invisible  but 
omnipresent  activity  recalled  the  action  of  the  Jacobins 
during  the  Terror.  Its  Board  of  Six  sat  at  Konigsberg,  but 
it  had  its  branches  in  every  town  and  principality  from  the 
Oder  to  the  Rhine  and  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Styrian  Alps. 
Its  ostensible  aim  was  the  regeneration  of  the  Father- 
land. Its  abettors,  it  was  alleged,  sought  at  once  to  restore 
religion  and  purify  taste,  and  to  fight  against  corruption  in 
political  as  in  social  life ;  but  its  real  design  was  to  overthrow 
Napoleon.  The  King  himself,  Frederick  William  III., 
was  said  to  be  its  Grand  Master.  The  Queen  of  Prussia, 
the  beautiful  Louise,  was  its  Armida,  was  suspected  of 
inspiring  its  leaders  by  enticements  similar  to  those  by 
which  Marie  Antoinette  seduced  the  leaders  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. Minister  vom  Stein,  le  nomme  Stein,  of  Napoleon's 
dispatch  from  Madrid,  was,  it  was  rumoured,  its  Mirabeau; 
but  every  man  prominent  in  German  public  life  had  en- 
couraged or  joined  this  infernal  conspiracy — Hardenberg, 
Niebuhr,  Scharnhorst,  Goltz,  Stadion,  Blucher,  Dalberg 
himself,  the  Primate,  Napoleon's  most  servile  flatterer. 
It  had  its  agents  in  every  university  in  Germany — Gottin- 
gen,  Heidelberg,  Jena,  Marburg,  Tubingen.  How  could  it 
fail  to  extend  its  venomous  influence  to  the  great  University 
of  Vienna  and  its  three  thousand  students?  Another  of  its 
reputed  agents,  the  celebrated  August  von  Schlegel,  the 
friend  of  Madame  de  Stael,  had  lectured  to  those  very 
students  less  than  a  year  ago. 


The  Assassin  127 

"Fanaticism  in  the  blood  of  youth  works  like  a  subtle 
flame,"  Napoleon  reasoned,  "prompting  to  heroism  or  to 
deadly  error."  The  poet  Collin  and  his  brother — he  had 
had  his  eye  on  them  and  their  songs  and  their  writings 
since  February  last.  Translations  of  their  stuff  had  been 
distributed  in  Paris  itself.  He  had  ordered  their  arrest  the 
day  of  his  arrival  at  Schonbrunn,  but  it  was  too  late.  The 
conspiracy  had  drawn  other  elements  to  itself — the  dis- 
content with  the  feudal  tyrannies,  was  as  violent  in  the 
Germany  of  Frederick  William  and  Francis  II.  as  in 
the  France  of  Louis  XVI.  Schiller's  Robbers,  and  even 
the  melodramatic  patriotism  of  Firbellin,  the  village-born 
youth  loved  by  his  mistress,  condemned  by  her  lord  to  be 
thrown  alive  into  a  smelting  furnace,  expressed  phases  of 
this  social  and  political  discontent. 

But  the  peace — the  terms  of  peace?  What  would  be  the 
effect  of  this  attempted  murder  upon  them? 

He  stopped  his  walk  and  stood. 

"Send  Nicas  here." 

The  famous  courier,  whose  midnight  ride  through  the 
Wienerwald  had  extorted  the  admiration  and  the  laughter 
of  Vienna  and  the  army,  was  in  waiting.  He  entered  at 
once,  light,  agile,  with  the  look  of  an  explorer  or  traveller, 
the  finest  figure  except  Favrol's  in  the  room. 

Nicas  seemed  to  have  expected  the  summons.  Indeed, 
since  eleven  that  morning,  when  Prince  John  of  Liechten- 
stein and  Count  Bubna  left  Schonbrunn,  he  had  been 
lounging  about  the  palace  with  his  instructions  known  and 
sealed,  waiting  for  this  order.  For  just  as  in  war  Napoleon 
always  had  plan  behind  plan  lightly  held  within  his  brain, 
so  in  diplomacy  he  had  scheme  behind  scheme  ready  to  be 
sprung  on  his  adversary  at  any  unforeseen  moment. 

Napoleon  took  him  to  the  end  of  the  room,  but  almost 
instantly  returned,  and  some  seconds  later  Nicas,  on  a 
black  powerful  horse,  the  same  as  those  upon  which  the 


128  Schonbrunn 

Chasseurs  de  la  Garde  were  mounted  but  with  better 
staying  power,  was  on  his  road. 

Those  who  saw  him  gallop  through  Vienna  twenty 
minutes  later  saw  that  he  left  the  city,  not  by  the  road  that 
went  to  Brientz,  but  by  a  road  which  went  to  Altenburg. 
And  with  a  thrill  of  excitement  men  asked — for  his  figure 
had  become  known  in  Vienna — "Has  the  peace  been  signed 
then,  and  is  he  the  bearer  of  the  news  to  Petersburg  and  to 
the  Czar  Alexander,  or  to  Warsaw?" 

Meanwhile,  in  the  presence  chamber,  at  a  sign  from 
Duroc,  the  Grand  Chamberlain,  several  officers  had  retired. 
There  now  remained  only  a  select  group  composed  of  Na- 
poleon's great  officials  or  most  trusted  generals. 

Napoleon's  aspect  had  not  changed,  unless  that  after  dis- 
patching Nicas  his  expression  had  lightened  somewhat. 

His  eye  fell  on  Berthier.  "Ah,  you  rogue ! "  he  exclaimed 
laughing.  "What  became  of  you  and  your  Mameluke 
Guard?  You  made  a  run  to  the  town?  You  have  your 
plots  with  Maret?" 

"But  your  Majesty — "  Berthier  expostulated. 

He  took  hold  of  Berthier  by  the  ear.  The  demonstration 
of  affection  seemed  sincere.  Tears  stood  in  Berthier's  eyes. 

"Yes,  yes,  I  know,"  Napoleon  went  on.  "You  are  both 
alike ;  you  must  have  your  fingers  in  every  pie.  That  devil 
of  a  Maret, "  he  continued,  his  good  humour  flowing  out  like 
sunshine,  "turned  up  at  Soma  Sierra  on  a  November  night, 
half  frozen — 'Sire!  Sire!'  He  seemed  to  think  it  a  crime 
that  I  had  fired  a  shot  when  he  was  not  there  to  see.  Le 
bon  Maret!"  And  he  laughed  again. 

In  this  deliverance  from  a  great  danger  a  pleasant  sense 
of  well-being  had  at  first  diffused  itself  over  him.  But  the 
mere  mention  of  Spain  was  vitriol.  The  cloud  returned  to 
his  brow,  darker  and  more  ominous  than  before. 

"These  hired  assassins — it  is  not  against  me  but  against 
my  brave  grenadiers  that  they  are  sent.  You  saw  their 


The  Assassin  129 

wounds  to-day.  You  heard  their  cries.  But  they  shall  at 
/east  have  bread,  my  brave  ones.  I  will  rule  Spain  with  a 
rod  of  iron.  She  has  refused  my  good.  She  shall  know  my 
evil.  I  will  turn  her  cities  into  garrisons.  I  will  stall  my 
horses  in  her  monasteries,  and  her  cathedrals  I  will  make 
granaries  for  my  armies." 

And  releasing  the  Prince  de  Neuchatel's  ear  which  till 
that  moment  he  had  been  affectionately  holding,  he  pushed 
him  almost  rudely  aside.  The  real  storm,  which  during 
Corvisart's  presence  had  announced  itself  only  by  prelimi- 
nary flashes  now  hurtled  over  the  heads  of  the  courtiers  and 
soldiers. 

"The  ingratitude  of  men!"  he  suddenly  burst  out. 
"L'infamie  humaine — that  is  the  maxim  which  down  the 
centuries  each  man  has  to  learn,  and  to  each  it  is  surprising 
as  death!  What  gratitude  had  Caesar  or  the  son  of  Philip? 
And  I,  whom  can  I  trust?" 

And  turning  sharply,  and  glancing  alternately  at  Berthier, 
Duroc,  Bertrand,  Rapp  and  Hulin, — "Fidelity?  Where  is 
fidelity?"  he  exclaimed,  unconsciously  imitating  Nero's 
cry  as  the  sword  of  the  pretorian  entered  his  breast, — "I 
find  egoism  everywhere.  What  is  this  I  hear  of  Soult? 
I  hunted  the  English  leopards  to  the  sea.  I  go,  and  the 
English  are  back  in  Spain.  And  that  is  the  moment 
which  this  fanfaron  of  a  Soult  chooses  to  make  himself  a 
king!  When  he  ought  to  be  on  Wellington's  traces  he 
organises  conspiracies  in  Oporto,  talks  like  an  avocat, 
sends  me  a  committee  requesting  me  to  give  Portugal  a 
monarch — King  Nicholas  I.!  For  what  dynasty  but  that 
of  Soult  can  succeed  the  House  of  Braganza — eh?  Le 
brave  Soult!  And  whilst  the  courtiers  are  kissing  the 
hands  of  King  Nicholas,  the  English  cannon  send  them 
skipping  and  I  have  lost  Oporto." 

He  darted  to  a  table  on  which  a  map  of  Germany  was 
lying  outspread.  It  was  the  same  that  he  had  used  that 

9 


130  Schonbrunn 

morning  with  Liechtenstein  and  Bubna.  Flinging  it  on 
the  floor  Napoleon  bent  over  another,  a  map  of  Spain. 

"There,  there,"  he  cried,  pointing  to  a  spot,  "there  is 
Wellington,  or  there  was  Wellington  three  weeks  ago:  to- 
day for  anything  I  know  he  may  be  sitting  in  Madrid. 
And  what  does  Joseph  do  ?  How  does  the  King  my  brother 
act?  Wellington  has  not  more  than  thirty  thousand  men 
and  he  is  three  hundred  miles  from  Torres  Vedras,  his  base; 
yet  Joseph  does  nothing;  he  writes  to  me  that  he  has  only 
ten  thousand  troops.  Ten  thousand!  Good  God!  Has 
then  Wellington  no  communications?  And  why  did  he 
publish  his  numbers  to  the  world?  Am  I  a  conqueror?  Yet 
at  Eckmiihl  I  had  only  one  against  five ;  but  in  the  orders  of 
the  day  I  declared  that  I  was  fifteen  to  ten,  and  my  brave 
grenadiers  fought  as  if  it  were  a  jest.  Soldiers  do  not 
reason.  They  believe. " 

Hulin  did  a  piece  of  mental  arithmetic  and  suddenly 
looked  at  Rapp.  Even  at  three  hundred  miles  from  his 
base  Wellington  must  still  have  had  twelve  thousand  to 
fifteen  thousand  men.  A  sarcastic  light  had  risen  in  his 
eyes.  He  had  been  through  the  Italian  campaign  with 
Bonaparte.  This  was  not  the  spirit  in  which  Bonaparte 
at  that  period,  at  Arcola  or  at  Rivoli,  addressed  his  troops. 
Was  Napoleon's  brain  becoming  dulled,  Hulin  asked 
himself,  or  was  he  simply  talking  for  effect,  unscrupulous 
in  argument,  haranguing  the  imaginary  Joseph? 

Napoleon  pushed  aside  the  map  and,  his  hands  behind 
his  back,  began  to  walk  up  and  down. 

XII 

All  were  congratulating  themselves  that  the  storm  was 
over  and  Duroc  was  about  to  remind  the  Emperor  that 
he  had  eaten  nothing  since  breakfast,  when  on  a  sudden 
the  thunder  gathered  again,  and  this  time  it  burst  over  Ber- 


The  Assassin  131 

thier,  who,  with  his  arms  folded,  stood  in  perfect  uncon- 
sciousness that  this  attitude,  good  enough  in  Napoleon's 
absence,  was  ridiculous  and  supremely  irritating  in  Napo- 
leon's presence.  It  prevented  the  Emperor  taking  that 
attitude  himself. 

But  with  a  curious  cunning  or  malignity  he  did  not  at 
once  attack  Berthier  directly. 

"Ingratitude  and  imbecility  are  my  world."  And  as 
though  appealing  to  the  Prince  de  Neuchatel  for  support 
he  looked  at  him  searchingly.  "Nature  should  have  given 
me  a  hundred  heads  as  she  gave  Briareus  a  hundred  hands. 
I  loved  Marmont  as  a  son.  Yet  you  know,  you  know  his 
fatuities  at  Laa — there  where  a  single  squadron  of  Radet- 
sky's  hussars  might  have  destroyed  the  bridge  and  made 
my  victory  and  the  death  of  twenty  thousand  men  in  vain. 
And  in  Passau  and  in  Antwerp,  in  Madrid  and  in  Rome — 
why  am  I  not  there  myself?  Why  am  I  still  in  Vienna? 
Why  am  I  not  with  my  armies  in  Spain?  It  is  you,  Ber- 
thier, you  who  are  to  blame." 

Berthier  unclasped  his  arms  and  stepped  back,  staring  at 
his  master.  The  latter  poured  on  the  astonished  Prince  de 
Neuchatel  a  torrent  of  picturesque  invective,  now  a  single 
epithet,  now  an  unforgettable  laughter-provoking  phrase, 
caricaturing,  ridiculing  in  every  possible  manner  Berthier's 
disposition  of  the  army  in  April  last,  scattered  over  an 
area  of  sixty  miles. 

"  Dites,  dites !  If  the  Archduke  had  stood  in  your  council 
of  war  as  your  most  trusted  adviser,  what  other  dispositions 
would  you  have  taken  ?  You  could  have  been  annihilated ; 
you  ought  to  have  been  annihilated." 

And  as  though  he  intended  himself  to  supplement  the 
Archduke's  neglected  duty  and  annihilate  Berthier  now, 
he  advanced  upon  him ;  but  suddenly  checked  himself  with 
a  gesture  of  mingled  grief  and  discouragement. 

Berthier,  "the  heaven-born  chief  of  the  Staff,"  the  con- 


132  Schonbrunn 

stant  lover  of  Madam  d'Este*,  a  passion  perplexing  to  his 
master  as  to  himself,  was  a  man  who  in  service  found  his 
greatness  as  others  in  command ;  in  his  youth  the  follower 
of  Lafayette  and  freedom's  daybreak  in  the  West,  the  hero 
of  Lodi,  extravagant,  indefatigable,  squandering  a  million 
a  year. 

Napoleon  resumed. 

"I  came  to  Donauworth.  I  had  to  fight  five  battles  in 
five  days.  I  stormed  Ratisbon.  I  had  to  lead  my  armies 
to  Vienna  against  a  massed  enemy,  three  hundred  thousand 
of  them,  and  I  had  to  do  this  as  rapidly  as  a  man  travels 
in  a  time  of  peace,  fighting  eleven  battles  and  thirty-seven 
combats.  Do  you  suppose  that  is  good  for  a  nation  or  for 
an  army  ?  And,  but  for  you,  it  might  all  have  been  avoided." 

If  this  were  acting,  General  Hulin  thought  indignantly, 
it  was  greater  than  Talma's.  If  Napoleon  actually  knew, 
if  at  that  moment  he  was  actually  conscious  that  Berthier's 
dispositions  were  due  to  Napoleon's  own  mistake  or  to  the 
failure  of  a  semaphore  message,  how  could  he  or  any  man 
speak  in  those  tones  ? 

Another  brusque  change  in  Napoleon's  ideas  stopped 
Hulin's  morose  speculations. 

"But  I  should  do  everything  myself,  everything.  In 
Paris,  my  capital,  nothing  is  right.  Cambaceres  does 
nothing;  Clarke  does  nothing.  My  minister  for  war 
allows  the  English  to  believe  that  I  have  only  fifteen 
thousand  men  to  spare  and  if  they  care  to  land  at  Flushing 
the  road  to  Paris  is  open.  My  ministers !  By  the  God  of 
battles,  they  will  lie  in  bed  and  snore  till  the  English  wake 
them!  And  Fouch£ — what  does  that  traitor  mean?" 

He  looked  round  for  Savary — forgetting  for  the  moment 
that  the  due  de  Rovigo  had  left  the  room  with  Corvisart. 
Duroc  explained.  The  explanation  appeared  to  bring 
Napoleon's  thoughts  back  to  the  incident  of  the  morning. 
But  now  he  took  it  up  from  yet  another  standpoint. 


The  Assassin  133 

"He  stuffs  his  imagination  with  Roman  histories,  that 
young  hothead.  But  in  Paris  itself  books  appear  every 
week,  newspapers  appear  every  morning — and  of  what  are 
they  full?  The  History  of  La  Vendee,  Suetonius  and 
Tacitus,  and  the  falsified,  distorted  lives  of  the  Roman 
Caesars — is  that  the  reading  that  Fouche  thinks  most 
suitable  for  the  great  French  nation,  the  successor  of  Rome? 
It  is  to  place  daggers  in  the  hands  of  my  subjects.  / 
become  Tiberius,  Nero,  Domitian — que  scais-je?  If  this 
is  done  in  Paris  what  wonder  that  I  find  a  Brutus  at 
Schonbrunn!" 

Berthier,  though  no  ally  of  Fouche,  made  a  conciliatory, 
half-protesting  gesture  and  glanced  insinuatingly  at  Duroc. 
Both  dreaded  the  due  d'Otranto.  Was  not  the  Emperor 
exaggerating? 

"Do  you  wish  proofs?"  Napoleon  burst  out  furiously. 
"Tiens,  I  will  give  you  proofs." 

He  sketched  with  amazing  accuracy  and  rapidity  the 
books  which  had  appeared  during  the  campaign,  especially 
the  writings  of  Beauchamp,  a  former  agent  de  police,  who, 
simulating  the  desire  to  return  to  Napoleon's  service,  had 
taken  to  the  writing  of  "history,"  and  into  a  brochure 
upon  La  Vendee  had  woven  an  appeal  for  a  rising  against 
Napoleon,  the  gaoler  of  the  Pope,  similar  to  the  rising  of  La 
Rochejaquelin  against  Robespierre.  Again,  in  Rapin's 
treatise  on  Roman  Law  Savary's  secret  police  had  dis- 
covered this  sentence,  and  used  it  against  Fouchd's  secret 
police — "Thus  Tiberius,  till  now  a  friend  of  the  Senate  and 
of  the  Republic,  when  once  he  had  embrued  his  hands  in 
the  blood  of  the  high-born  Germanicus,  turned  to  tyranny 
and  waded  deeper  and  deeper  in  blood."  To  an  unpre- 
judiced eye  there  was  nothing  in  this  that  could  offend  the 
most  susceptible  of  tyrants,  but  Savary,  tormented  himself, 
it  was  said,  by  the  injured  phantom  of  d'Enghien,  had 
pointed  out  to  Napoleon  how  easy  it  was  to  interpret  the 


134  Schonbrunn 

paragraph  and  the  succeeding  chapter  as  a  deadly  satire 
upon  his  own  history  since  March,  1804. 

"Am  I  Tiberius?"  he  exclaimed,  this  time  appealing  to 
Duroc  as  though  to  destroy  the  effect  of  Berthier's  re- 
monstrance. "Is  this  Capri?  But  Fouche  is  conspiracy 
incarnate.  And  Murat — that  popinjay,  ce  geai  de  Murat — 
is  still  his  tool.  'No  conspiracy  without  a  sword'  is 
axiomatic,  and  in  the  conspiracy  against  me  the  King  of 
Naples  ii»  that  sword.  Murat?  He  would  sit  upon  my 
throne — mine — that  plumaged  cock  who  thinks  he  has  the 
pinions  of  an  eagle!  And  now,  if  Murat  fails,  Bernadotte 
will  serve.  Bernadotte!  The  blase  old  ruffian  who  nearly 
lost  me  Jena.  And  why  was  he  not  at  Eylau?  And  why 
was  he  late  for  Austerlitz?  Every  grenadier  in  the  army 
knows  why  we  had  to  wait  three  days  in  the  terrible  Decem- 
ber weather,  with  neither  food  nor  brandy,  and  then  arise 
and  defeat  two  Emperors  and  the  armies  of  two  Empires. 
And  now,  that  is  the  man  who  issues  his  proclamations 
without  my  permission  and  demands  money — money — 
money,  but  will  do  nothing  to  earn  it.  Does  no  blasted 
tree  grow  by  the  Scheldt  to  which  this  Judas  might  hang 
himself?  But  it  is  the  same  with  Massena,  the  same  with 
Ney,  with  Junot,  with  Augereau,  with  Suchet,  with  Murat." 

And  he  enumerated  the  sums  disbursed  annually  to  these 
marshals.  Berthier  alone  had  two  millions  a  year;  Davout 
900,000;  Massena  1,200,000;  Marmont  700,000.  Certainly 
there  seemed  a  reason  for  Bernadotte's  exclamation  long 
afterwards:  "Once  I  was  a  marshal  of  France.  Now  I 
am  merely  King  of  Sweden. " 

"Gold,  gold!  I  would  need  a  Golconda,  and  have  but 
a  Spain.  The  ingratitude  and  rapacity  of  men!  Was 
Genghis  or  Timour  surrounded  by  such  vultures?  Spain 
costs  me  millions  and  yields  me  nothing.  I  have  spent 
seven  hundred  and  ninety  millions  this  year,  and  in  1808 
I  spent  seven  hundred  and  sixty-five  millions.  How  much 


The  Assassin  135 

did  I  get  from  Spain?  Not  a  sou,  and  it  absorbs  some  of 
my  bravest  troops.  I  should  be  there  amongst  them — I 
should  be  there  amongst  them.  ..." 

Anger  now  fled  from  his  voice ;  it  was  full  of  nothing  but 
self-reproach. 

Berthier  chose  this  moment  to  let  fall  the  question  which 
for  several  minutes  had  been  in  his  head: 

"Where  should  your  Majesty  not  be?" 

And  Napoleon,  as  if  conscious  that  he  had  exceeded  the 
measure  in  his  rebukes,  ignored  the  flattery  and  once  more 
spoke  in  a  tone  of  bitter  self -exculpation. 

"If  I  were  what  my  enemies  and  the  English  say,  do  you 
think  my  soldiers  would  not  know  it?  They  see  me  every 
hour  of  every  day.  Or  do  you  suppose  that  they  fought 
as  they  have  fought  these  twelve  heroic  years  from  Arcola 
to  Ratisbon  and  Wagram  for  three  pence  a  day?  No,  it  is 
because  I  speak  to  their  souls,  to  something  in  them  pro- 
found, mysterious.  They  accuse  me  of  being  a  slave  to  my 
ambition.  Ambition?  I  and  my  ambition  are  one.  How 
can  I  be  its  slave  unless  I  am  slave  to  myself?  Do  they 
imagine  that  I  am  a  Romanoff?  Do  they  think  that  I 
would  commit  murder  for  a  crown?  And  a  throne!  What 
is  a  throne?  The  throne  of  Clovis  was  the  stump  of  an 
oak.  And  the  sceptre  of  the  first  of  the  Capets  was,  like 
the  sceptre  of  Agamemnon,  cut  from  the  nearest  hedge. 
A  throne!  On  the  day  of  my  coronation  I  had  no  rest 
until  I  had  torn  my  robe  to  tatters  and  kicked  them  about 
the  floor.  Duroc  is  my  witness.  I  could  neither  think  nor 
act  in  the  gew-gaws.  I  could  not  even  feel  myself  a  man. " 

And  in  a  voice  like  that  of  a  man  in  a  trance,  Napoleon 
uttered  the  singular  words : 

"If  I  could  but  have  ten  more  years — or  even  five. 
With  peace  in  Europe  I  could  do  much  in  five  years.  Paris, 
Europe,  Asia,  and  then —  But  too  much  is  against  me. 
I  have  come  too  late.  The  fire  is  extinct. " 


136  Schonbrunn 

But  caught  again  into  the  vortex  of  self-exculpatory 
denunciation,  he  hurried  on: 

"It  is  the  kings  that  are  to  blame.  The  kings  have 
vowed  my  ruin.  They  will  not  give  peace  to  Europe.  To 
cover  their  own  crimes  they  accuse  me  of  crime.  Assassins, 
they  declare  that  I  am  an  assassin.  The  Czar  accused  me 
of  the  murder  of  d'Enghien  and  put  his  court  in  mourning. 
Where  was  his  virtue,  his  indignation  and  his  abhorrence  of 
foul  play  when  the  cut-throats  sent  by  Pitt  were  lurking 
round  Petersburg  ready  to  strangle  his  father,  my  friend 
and  ally,  Paul  I.?  And  Gustavus  IV.?  He  too  calls  me 
assassin.  But  he  is  fallen,  and  I  do  not  make  war  upon  the 
fallen.  And  these  Prussians,  dreamers  and  cretins — they 
make  an  idol  of  the  Mecklenburg-Strelitz  princess — that 
infamous  House — Frederick  William's  Queen,  Louisa. 
They  lie  and  lie  about  my  interview  with  her.  She  is  thirty- 
five  and  already  passte  and  Frederick  William  is  a  year 
older  than  I  am.  They  had  come  to  years  of  discretion  at 
Austerlitz,  both  of  them.  Where  then  was  the  great-souled 
Queen  Louisa?  Where  were  the  Prussian  Hector  and 
Andromaque  when,  on  the  morning  after  the  battle,  I  made 
Haugwitz  demand  that  Prussia  should  seize  Hanover?" 

His  laugh  was  terrible — the  laugh  of  the  Hebrew;  but 
his  brow  remained  black,  and  he  walked  up  and  down  ab- 
sorbed in  still  blacker  reflections. 

"You  appeal  to  laws?"  he  said  flashing  round  and  ad- 
dressing an  imaginary  throng  of  adversaries.  "What  do 
I  care  for  your  laws,  human  or  divine  so  called?  Laws, 
human  or  divine,  are  temporary  contracts  between  tem- 
porary and  changing  aggregations  of  men.  The  ancients 
made  the  gods  themselves  bend  before  Destiny.  And  my 
politics  is  Destiny.  The  laws  that  I  obey  spring  from 
within  me.  My  will,  withdrawn  and  apart,  unites  in  the 
dreadful  solitudes  with  the  inmost  will  of  the  worlds  and 
then  I  act — and  I  then  am  Destiny. " 


The  Assassin  137 

He  resumed  the  attack  on  the  court  of  Berlin. 

"His  Majesty  of  Prussia  at  my  bidding  picked  Hanover 
out  of  England's  pocket  when  England's  back  was  turned, 
and  your  Queen  Louisa,  your  Andromaque,  flung  her 
white  arms  round  the  pickpocket  Hector's  neck — your 
tearful  heroine,  beautiful  in  her  disaster,  heroic,  unyielding, 
constant!  And  elated  by  the  heroic  success  she  gave  a 
dance  on  that  very  jour  de  Van;  she  was  insolent  to  my 
ambassador.  The  two  criminals,  with  Hanover  safely 
pocketed,  dreamed  that  Prussia  single-handed  could  now 
meet  the  victor  of  Austerlitz.  Jena  taught  them  a  lesson — 
Jena.  But  only  for  a  time.  The  wise  remember  Des- 
tiny's chastisements;  the  fool  quickly  forgets  all  save  his 
folly,  and  Prussia  is  that  fool.  She  is  my  ally;  yet  a 
Hohenlohe  fought  against  me  at[Eckmuhl  and  galloped  back 
to  Berlin  like  a  jackal  to  its  lair.  So  are  they  all,  all  your 
hereditary  kings  and  princes,  Habsburg,  Hohenzollern, 
Romanoff,  your  English  Guelph  and  Spanish  Bourbon! 
Europe  is  one  huge  Augean  stable.  And  Prussia?  Prussia 
is  the  foulest  corner  of  it  all.  But  they  shall  know,  they 
shall  know  what  it  is  to  arm  against  me  the  fanatic's 
dagger." 

A  tracery  of  ideas  swept  across  Napoleon's  face.  He  was 
sick  of  the  word  "Revolution";  for  his  would-be  assassin  of 
that  morning  was  a  Revolutionist;  and  he  could  not  now 
speak  of  his  dynasty  without  betraying  a  secret  that  he 
wished  to  maintain  until  at  least  he  had  returned  to  Paris. 
Yet  something  he  must  say;  for  he  was  wrought  to  the 
height,  and  with  a  curious  blending  of  craft,  prudence,  and 
extreme  audacity,  feeling  a  joy  in  thus  expressing  his 
contempt  for  men  by  uttering  truths  perhaps  profound, 
but  to  those  who  heard  him  unintelligible,  or,  if  intelligible, 
certain  to  be  regarded  with  furious  opposition.  Danger 
Bonaparte  had  rarely  shunned;  and  this  was  danger.  And 
now  crushing  in  his  hands  his  old  hat,  already  soft  and 


138  Schonbrunn 

kneaded,  though  provided  every  three  months  with  a  new 
white  silk  lining,  he  stopped,  and  with  that  oratory  which 
at  these  moments,  aided  by  the  real  mystery  and  power  of 
his  personality,  always  electrified: 

"Do  you  know  what  it  is  against  which  I  war?  It  is 
against  Patriotism;  it  is  against  Nationality.  Patriotism  is 
the  eating  ulcer  of  humanity.  War  alone  can  cauterize 
the  sore.  Like  range  behind  range  of  mountains  I  see  new 
wars  arise;  mine  are  only  the  prelude. " 

Hulin  lifted  his  head.  Standing  with  both  his  hands 
lightly  poised  on  the  gilt  edges  of  a  richly  carved  table  he 
looked  at  his  master. 

"A  federated  Europe  with  France  at  its  head?  There  is 
a  thought  here, "  Hulin  said  to  himself  and  waited. 

But  Bonaparte  permitting  a  storm  of  ideas  to  pass  un- 
spoken, Hulin  saw  suddenly  the  Emperor's  face  flush,  his 
eyes  lightened,  the  sound  which  his  hands  made  twist- 
ing and  untwisting  his  hat,  soft  as  it  was,  could  almost 
be  heard  in  the  silence.  His  right  leg  was  trembling 
convulsively. 

Duroc,  fearing  another  epileptic  attack  like  that  in 
August  which  had  brought  Corvisart  flying  to  Schonbrunn, 
crept  nearer  him,  but  stopped  at  the  Emperor's  next 
words. 

"But  you  do  not  understand.  Not  one  of  you  under- 
stands. What?  Is  there  one  of  you  who  would  not  have 
been  glad  in  his  very  soul  had  that  dagger  sunk  to  the  hilt 
in  my  breast?  Is  there  one  of  you?  There  was  a  Ganelon 
in  the  army  of  Charlemagne.  Why  should  not  Schonbrunn 
have  been  my  Roncesvalles?  To-night  perhaps  it  may  be; 
these  walls  are  full  of  daggers." 

His  face  at  this  moment  had  the  look  of  a  death-mask,  the 
earthy  pallor,  the  tintless  vitreous  gaze,  the  lashless  eye- 
lids, the  forehead  without  eyebrows,  as  if  thought  and  life 
together  had  receded  into  some  inaccessible  heights  or 


The  Assassin  139 

remotenesses  from  which  he  surveyed  the  whole  course  and 
end  of  human  life  and  history. 

"That  venomous  boy,  hired  by  Austria  or  hired  by 
Prussia,  or  by  the  Jesuits  at  the  bidding  of  Cardinal  Pacca 
— what  do  I  know?  Perhaps  in  collusion  with  my  own 
followers,  my  own  ministers — for  it  needs  but  this — that 
one  of  you  should  betray  me.  Austria?  But  they  shall 
not  succeed.  They  splinter  their  daggers  on  adamant. 
You  give  me  counsels  unasked,  you  din  my  ears  with  your 
snoring  banalities — moderation,  peace  with  England,  to 
come  to  terms  with  Liechtenstein,  the  inconveniences  of 
the  Continental  System.  Is  it  that  I  do  not  know  them, 
these  inconveniences — I?" 

He  sought  for  words.  His  eyes  darted  ineffectual  light- 
nings about  the  room.  The  words  came. 

"  You  warn  me?  You?  You  would  dictate  my  duties, 
thrust  yourself  between  my  goal  and  me?  You  would 
frustrate  my  designs,  moderate  my  course,  even  guide  my 
path — mine!  You,  you  would  prescribe  a  path  to  the 
avalanche?"  he  exclaimed,  grasping  at  the  metaphor  which 
had  occurred  to  him  on  his  ride.  "You  deform,  be-monster 
yourselves  by  your  folly,  not  me. " 

Suddenly  he  rushed  at  Berthier  and  seizing  the  lapel  of 
his  heavily  embroidered  coat  he  dragged  him  to  the  window 
which  looked  out  across  the  garden  and  fountains,  the 
statues  and  parterres,  bathed  now  in  the  last  light  of  the 
October  afternoon,  and,  pointing  to  the  sky,  Napoleon 
exclaimed : 

"Do  you  see  that  star?  Do  you  see  it?"  he  repeated  in 
a  voice  that  sent  a  shudder  to  the  heart. 

Berthier,  thinking  that  his  master  was  mad  at  last,  or 
that  he  was  the  victim  of  a  cataleptic  attack  similar  to  that 
of  August,  stammered  some  vague  words — his  sight  was 
not  so  keen  as  his  Majesty's;  stars,  by  ordinary  men,  could 
be  seen  at  mid-day  only  from  the  bottom  of  a  pit. 


14°  Schonbrunn 

"You  do  not  see  it?  Yet  you  counsel  me;  would  control 
my  course?  I  see  it,  moi.  And  that  star  is  the  ruler  of  my 
fate.  It  is  the  star  of  my  destiny — guiding  me  on,  on,  on! " 

Trembling  violently,  he  released  Berthier,  and  struggled 
against  the  emotion  convulsing  him;  then,  furious  at  his 
own  loss  of  self-command,  he  stuttered  fiercely  the  word: 

"Sortez." 

He  sank  back,  shuddering  and  shuddering  again.  His 
features,  sickening  pale,  were  convulsed.  The  faint  dirtyish 
foam  gathered  more  thickly  about  his  lips. 

At  a  commanding  sign  from  Duroc  the  room  was  cleared. 
He  and  Berthier  remained  alone  with  the  Emperor. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  MIND  OF  A  CITY 


IN  Vienna  that  afternoon  the  ferment  provoked  by  the 
conflicting  rumours  was  extreme.  War  was  judged  to 
be  inevitable.  The  Bourse  within  half  an  hour  registered  a 
fall  of  three  per  cent.  The  shops  in  the  main  thoroughfares, 
in  the  Graben  and  Karnthnerstrasse,  closed  as  usual  for 
the  mid-day  meal,  had  not  re-opened.  Thousands  of 
citizens  paraded  the  streets  or  stood  in  excited  groups, 
especially  in  the  Alleegasse  and  its  vicinity,  awaiting 
the  arrival  of  Berthier,  Prince  de  Neuchatel.  Hundreds 
thronged  to  the  Cathedral  or  to  the  great  churches  of  St. 
Michael  and  St.  Dominic  to  pray.  For  what? 

Towards  evening  the  cafe's,  restaurants,  bierhallen,  were 
packed.  At  the  Cafe"  Che'nier,  recently  opened  in  the 
Kohlmarkt  and  frequented  by  the  middle  class,  the  crowd 
outside  became  so  large  and  so  menacing  that  it  was  twice 
dispersed  by  the  gendarmerie.  Their  new  uniforms,  an 
invention  of  Napoleon's  satellite,  exposed  them  to  the 
jeers  and  hoots  or  to  the  witticisms  of  the  mob. 

Inside  the  cafe*  a  babel  of  guttural  voices  drowned  the 
tzigane  orchestra. 

"I  saw  the  blood  on  his  vest.  With  my  own  eyes  I  saw 
the  blood!"  a  Greek  "banker,"  really  a  money-lender, 
asseverated,  waving  his  plump  brown  hand  covered  with 

141 


142  Schonbrunn 

rings.  "I  was  standing  beside  the  Prince  de  Ponte  Corvo, 
who  is  my  very  good  friend.  Napoleon  threw  up  his  arms, 
then  dropped  them,  so,  so,  so" — imitating  the  gesture — 
"closed  his  eyes,  staggered  and  was  about  to  fall  when  the 
Prince  de  Ponte  Corvo " 

But  a  ponderous,  hulking  figure,  a  Viennese  silk-merchant, 
interrupted  the  speaker.  "The  Prince  de  Ponte  Corvo,  did 
you  say?"  he  began  with  slow  emphasis.  "Nonsense! 
Bernadotte  is  in  Belgium.  I  read  it  in  the  Gazette  yester- 
day. "  And  he  muttered  contemptuously,  "These  usur- 
ers are  all  alike,  liars  or  coiners  to  a  man. " 

The  dispute  became  bitter.  Several  of  the  Viennese 
took  the  side  of  their  fellow-citizen  against  the  hated  Greek ; 
others,  who  had  borrowed  or  hoped  to  borrow  from  the 
latter,  asserted  that  they  too  had  recognized  Bernadotte; 
some  had  seen  him  that  morning,  others  had  passed  him 
yesterday  riding  in  the  Prater. 

But  a  new-comer  who  had  forced  his  way  through  the 
cordon  gave  a  new  trend  to  their  ideas.  He  was  a  great 
timber-merchant  and  the  barges  of  his  fleet  were  known  on 
every  jetty  of  the  Danube  from  Rustchuk  to  Ratisbon. 
"Napoleon?"  he  began  mysteriously,  rolling  out  the  name. 
"  No  mortal  hand  struck  him  down.  His  time  is  up.  Ten 
years ;  ten  years  of  power  and  glory ;  gold  and  women  and 
palaces  and  gardens.  He's  got  'em  all.  The  demon  has 
kept  his  bond.  But  what  of  that?  The  time  is  up.  What 
hasn't  happened  to-day  will  happen  to-morrow.  Ten 
years  ago  to-morrow,  Saturday,  I4th  October,  1799,  General 
Buonaparte  came  back  from  Egypt.  He  landed  at  Frejus. 
Why  was  he  not  shot  for  deserting  his  army?  For  the  same 
reason  that  he  was  not  guillotined  when,  a  few  weeks  later,  he 
conspired  against  the  Republic.  For  the  same  reason  that  he 
was  defeated  at  Marengo,  yet  victorious.  It  is  Hell's  doing. 
It  is  his  compact  with  Hell.  Until  this  time  to-morrow,  I4th 
October,  he  is  invulnerable.  But  after  to-morrow " 


The  Mind  of  a  City  143 

This  account,  which  explained  everything,  made  a  deep 
impression  and  a  man  who  had  not  yet  spoken  now  asked : 

"Can  any  one  inform  me  whether  that  story  of  Madame 
Walewska  having  borne  the  Corsican  blackguard  a  son 
in  the  apartments  sacred  to  our  blessed  empress  Maria 
Theresa,  is  true  or  false?" 

He  was  a  thick-set,  combative  individual,  and  though  a 
Styrian  he  had  Magyar  blood.  He  too  was  a  merchant, 
but  traded  with  the  Ionian  islands — trafficking  in  the  sul- 
phur and  marbles  of  Corfu,  in  the  currant  vines  of  Zante, 
and  for  the  last  two  years  in  the  spices  of  Cephalonia. 

"That  can  I, "  the  barge-owner  retorted.  "It  was  no  son, 
but  a  monster  born  the  evening  of  the  demon's  apparition. 
It  is  whispered  that  she  too  had  abandoned  her  body  to  the 
embraces  of  the  demon.  His  son,  not  Bonaparte's.  Bona- 
parte can't  have  a  son. " 

All  except  the  Greek  crossed  themselves,  some  phleg- 
matically,  some  with  looks  of  horror. 

"Has  the  Tempter  still  those  tastes  then?" 

The  other  nodded  significantly. 

An  old  fellow  with  a  long  thick  dirtyish  white  beard  said 
in  a  greasy  voice: — "It  fulfils  the  scriptures.  It  fulfils  the 
prophecy  which  was  on  every  lip  on  his  birthday  fe"tes — 
'  The  black  eagle  shall  raven  no  longer,  struck  down  within 
Wien's  walls.'" 

The  prophecy  was  not  in  the  Old  Testament;  but  it  was 
the  most  famous  of  the  anagrams  formed  by  blending 
Napoleon's  full  name  with  the  motto  of  the  city  itself,  and 
the  whole  serious  company  became  absorbed  in  the  discus- 
sion of  omens  and  portents,  prophecies  and  comparisons  of 
Napoleon  and  Suleiman,  and  the  siege  of  Vienna  by  the 
Turks  with  the  sieges  of  Vienna  by  the  French. 

"You  speak  of  the  I4th  October.  Let  me  tell  you  about 
the  1 5th,  the  day  after  to-morrow,  when  Suleiman  the 
Magnificent  was  forced  to  raise  the  siege  of  Vienna."  Who 


144  Schonbrunn 

could  tell  what  deep  plans  were  not  in  the  Archduke 
Charles's  head,  or  in  that  of  the  Archduke  Johann  there 
behind  the  Russbach? 

And  with  a  simultaneous  impulse  of  bourgeois  loyalty, 
they  rose  heavily  to  their  feet  and  shouted  gutturally — 
"Es  lebe  der  Herzog  Karl;  es  lebe  der  Kaiser;  es  lebe  der 
Herzog  Johann!  Hoch!  Hoch!  Hoch!" 

II 

In  the  Villars  cafe*,  on  the  other  hand,  situated  in  the 
Stephanplatz,  a  very  different  state  of  feeling  prevailed. 
The  Cafe*  Villars  was  the  rendezvous  of  fashion,  and  though 
not  by  any  means  crowded  this  afternoon,  for  the  majority 
of  its  habitue's  were  with  the  army  or  with  the  Emperor,  it 
still  presented  a  scene  of  great  animation.  A  fine  orchestra 
was  playing.  The  guests  were  talking  in  low  tones  and 
drinking  coffee  or  sherbets  or  wine.  Here  the  attack  on 
Napoleon  was  pooh-poohed.  It  was  even  insinuated  that 
it  was  a  got-up  affair,  designed  as  an  excuse  for  breaking  off 
negotiations  or  more  subtly  to  dissemble,  by  the  appear- 
ance of  his  personal  danger,  his  real  weakness  and  an  in- 
tended concession  to  Austria. 

"Nothing  is  too  diabolically  subtle  for  Bonaparte,"  a 
brother  of  Lan-Lan's  observed;  "but  the  affair  does  not 
strike  me  as  a  fake.  Bonaparte  rode  away.  If  it  had 
been  a  fake  he  would  have  become  histrionic  and  talked 
Plutarch.  It  was  Savary  who  arrested  the  assassin.  I 
saw  him  taken  to  the  guard-house.  I  thought  he  had 
been  stealing." 

Lan-Lan's  brother  had  a  face  less  oval  than  his  sister's,  but 
he  had  her  soft  voice  and  half-humorous  dogmatism  of 
manner;  he  had  her  long  eyelashes,  and  their  upward  curl 
was  very  visible  as  he  blinked  before  a  broad  shaft  of  sun- 
light that  suddenly  flooded  through  an  open  door  across  the 


The  Mind  of  a  City  145 

room,  lighting  up  with  phantasmagoric  distinctness  the 
inlaid  patterns  on  chairs  and  tables,  glasses,  bottles,  the 
faces  of  the  Austrians  seated  around  them. 

The  report  that  Staps  was  a  Viennese  student  was  dis- 
missed with  the  sententious  comment,  "Vienna  might  breed 
a  Caesar  or  a  Sulla,  but  a  Brutus  never." 

Here  also  the  conversation  settled  upon  the  probable 
effect  of  this  real  or  imaginary  conspiracy  upon  the  pro- 
spects of  peace.  Would  the  Archduke  be  reconciled  to  his 
brother,  Stadion  replace  Metternich,  and  the  war  be  recom- 
menced ?  Such  a  war,  it  was  admitted,  could  only  end  in  the 
fall  of  Bonaparte  or  in  the  erasure  of  Austria  from  the  map  of 
Europe.  One  man,  a  councillor  of  Mines,  stated  his  opin- 
ion categorically. 

"Begin  the  war  again?  And  why?  To  please  England? 
To  please  Prussia  ?  How  long  is  Austria  to  act  the  gladiator  ? 
It  is  all  very  well  for  the  Archduke  Charles  to  cry,  'The 
freedom  of  Europe  has  taken  refuge  under  our  banners.' 
The  freedom  of  Europe!  Freedom  is  a  dangerous  word  and 
should  be  left  to  the  Jacobins.  What  is  'Europe'?  A 
name.  Five  bloody  battles  in  one  year.  Austria  has  done 
her  part." 

"Besides,"  said  another,  placing  his  epigram  once  more, 
"the  Archduke  is  played  out.  He  began  as  a  second 
Eugene;  he  ends  as  a  second  Mack. " 

So  in  the  cafe's  men  talked  and  conjectured,  and  in  private 
houses,  where  they  sat  watching  the  hands  of  the  ladies  at 
their  enfilage  or  mizzling — the  picking  apart  of  gold  bro- 
cade— the  same  conjecture,  varied  a  little,  went  on. 

Towards  the  dinner  hour,  which  in  Vienna  at  that  period 
was  about  six  o'clock,  an  approximation  to  the  truth  be- 
came known;  and  in  hundreds  of  families  that  evening,  in 
the  city  and  in  the  suburbs,  one  mysterious  word  passed 
from  lip  to  lip. 

"The  Tugendbund?     It  is  a  reality  then?" 


146  Schonbrunn 


m 

That  same  evening  the  Opera  House  in  the  Karnthner- 
strasse  was  crowded.  Members  of  the  nobility  and  of  the 
leading  families  of  Vienna  had  begun  to  slip  back  to  the 
city  and  now  occupied  their  boxes  or  sat  incognito  in  the 
stalls,  entered  under  various  false  names  on  the  Governor's, 
Count  Andre"ossy's  register.  The  attaches  of  the  Russian 
ambassador,  Czartorysky,  and  the  prominent  members  of 
the  Russian  colony,  the  Ostrakovs,  the  Gradins,  the  Petrow- 
skis,  refusing  to  submit  any  longer  to  the  boredom  of  Press- 
burg  or  the  filth  of  Buda  Pesth,  were  there  almost  to  a  man, 
relying  on  the  friendship  of  their  master  with  Napoleon. 
Many  of  the  boxes  and  almost  all  the  fauteuils  were  occupied 
by  French  officers  quartered  in  the  houses  of  the  owners. 
French  officers  also  mixed  with  the  Viennese  in  the  huge  and 
dimly  lighted  parterre. 

The  piece  was  Co  si  fan  tutti;  but  only  a  few  virtuosi,  or 
partisans  of  the  new  school,  listened.  Mozart's  music, 
even  this,  the  gayest  of  his  operas,  the  least  tinged  with 
"Mozartian  melancholy,"  was  to  French  and  to  Italian 
ears  in  1809  heavy,  slow  and  uninspired,  and  in  some  por- 
tions barbarous  and  absurd,  as  the  E  flat  Symphony  or  the 
Finale  to  Don  Giovanni.  Great  music,  these  critics  de- 
clared, had  come  to  an  end  with  Cimarosa.  Pergolese  and 
he  had  found  no  successors,  and,  except  Mayer  and  Baer, 
Germans  in  blood  but  Italians  in  manner,  not  even  an 
effective  imitator. 

But  to-night  the  question  occupying  every  mind  was  still 
the  probable  effects  of  the  sensational  incident  of  that  morn- 
ing upon  the  peace  negotiations. 

In  a  box  on  the  right-hand  side  of  the  stage,  on  the  same 
side  as  the  Imperial  box  but  a  tier  higher,  sat  the  old  Count 
Esterthal  and  two  French  aides-de-camp,  one  of  whom  was 
Favrol,  the  other  Colonel  Legros,  a  cavalry  officer  of  the 


The  Mind  of  a  City  147 


swashbuckler  type.  He  was  aide-de-camp  to  Oudinot, 
successor  of  Lannes  in  the  command  of  the  Second  Corps. 

It  was  now  the  end  of  the  first  act.  The  wish  to  talk  in- 
stead of  listening  had  become  universal,  alike  in  the  par- 
terre, in  the  stalls,  and  in  the  boxes.  The  stage  manager 
had  repeatedly  appeared  and  been  as  repeatedly  sent 
back  amid  impatient  or  angry  shouts  of  "Attendez! 
Attendez!" 

In  the  Esterthal  box  the  conversation,  studiedly  avoiding 
politics,  had  turned  upon  music  and  the  drama.  Favrol 
admired  Haydn  and  was  an  enthusiast  for  Mozart.  He  had 
had,  he  once  told  Amalie  laughingly,  but  three  passions  in 
his  life,  Mozart,  Cimarosa,  and  Shakespeare.  And  in  herself, 
though  he  had  never  had  the  courage  to  tell  her  this,  he  had 
discovered  something  of  each  of  his  passions — the  reckless 
joy  and  rich  laughter  of  Cimarosa,  Mozart's  ethereal  melan- 
choly, and  the  foreshadowings  of  that  energy  and  passion, 
the  desire  for  which  had  driven  him  from  the  vapid  liter- 
ature of  his  time  to  study  day  and  night  the  Italy  of  the 
Renaissance  and  the  tragedies  of  Ford  and  Webster,  Tour- 
neur,  Marlowe  and  Shakespeare. 

The  old  Count,  on  the  other  hand,  detested  everything 
modern,  the  new  German  poetry  and  the  new  German 
music.  He  called  Schiller  "a  Jacobin,"  and  Goethe  "an 
enemy  of  religion,"  and  Werner  "a  maniac."  But  he  liked 
the  military  plays  of  Ayrenhof,  which  Favrol  styled  "head- 
quarters timber,"  and  he  praised  the  simple  and  homely 
pathos  of  the  Suabian,  Konrad  Grubel.  Rentzdorf's  art 
the  Count  simply  refused  to  discuss. 

"We  Germans,"  the  old  aristocrat  declared,  after  the 
momentary  silence  caused  by  Rentzdorf's  name,  "read too 
much,  write  too  much,  think  too  much.  What  is  this  chat- 
ter about  the  Aufklarung  and  these  philosophies  of  enlight- 
enment? Sensible  men  despise  such  mountebankism.  We 
have  had  enough  of  Josephinism.  The  doctrine  of  equality 


148  Schonbrunn 

would  require  society  to  begin  at  the  beginning  with  each 
new  generation.  Men  are  not  equal.  That  doctrine  cost  us 
the  Netherlands:  it  cost  us  Italy.  Now  we  are  about  to 
lose  Illyria.  And  why?" 

Favrol  had  a  singular  sensation.  He  ceased  to  be  a  sol- 
dier sitting  by  right  of  conquest  in  a  captured  city.  He  was 
merely  the  son  of  a  small  landed  proprietor  of  Languedoc 
talking  to  a  member  of  the  oldest  and  haughtiest,  if  stupid- 
est and  most  bigoted  caste  in  Europe.  Yet  he  had  neither 
the  power  to  answer  nor  the  will  to  laugh,  so  actual  and  so 
unbridgeable  was  the  gulf  separating  him  from  this  man 
and  from  his  convictions.  And  what  if  Count  Esterthal's 
convictions  were  an  anticipation  of  that  "judgment  of 
posterity"  upon  the  French  Revolution  to  which  each  fac- 
tion whether  in  triumph  or  beside  the  guillotine,  had  suc- 
cessively appealed? 

"But  Colonel  Legros  cannot  see  the  parterre,"  Count 
Esterthal  said. 

With  a  courtesy  full  of  irony  he  forced  the  aide  to  come 
forward  whilst  he  stepped  back  himself,  leaving  the  two 
French  officers  to  study  the  house. 

The  scene  they  looked  on  had  in  its  distinction  and  variety 
no  equal  in  Europe;  for  here  were  grace,  rank,  richness  of 
costume,  famous  names,  reputations  military  and  civil; 
and  here  too  every  effect  that  woman's  seduction  can  impart 
to  variousness  of  origin,  temper,  pose,  or  attitude.  To 
Favrol  its  seduction  to-night  was  extreme;  but  poignant 
too  was  the  impression  of  its  transitoriness ;  for  this  that 
moved  there  so  full  of  life  was  to  him  in  his  present  mood 
unsubstantial  as  a  picture  cast  by  the  rising  sun  upon  a  mist 
above  a  cataract,  to-morrow  to  be  replaced  by  another,  and 
yet  another,  eternally,  cycle  beyond  cycle;  and  out  there  in 
other  worlds,  myriads  of  them  crawling  blindly  round  my- 
riads of  suns,  in  their  mad  flame  dance  the  same  unmean- 
ing drama — youth,  passion,  glory,  age,  and  the  grave — 


The  Mind  of  a  City  149 

monotonous  as  the  season's  alternations,  monotonous  as 
day  and  night,  monotonous  as  all  things,  as  all  things. 

Nevertheless,  for  a  second  or  two,  the  sheer  sensuous 
appeal  lifted  his  spirit  to  that  region  which  the  medisevalists 
name  "the  heaven  of  pure  joy" — verum  gaudium  coeleste. 
An  unseen,  mystic  trumpet-call,  the  triumph  of  the  existent, 
the  spirit  of  vital  joy,  laughed  there,  murderous,  inexorable, 
whispering  in  those  voices,  pulsating  in  those  white  forms — 
as  once  it  had  pulsated,  murderous,  inexorable,  in  the  rangers 
of  the  forests  and  the  night,  the  tiger  and  the  puma. 

"The  beginning  and  the  end,  alpha  and  omega,"  Favrol 
said,  turning  away. 

The  glistening  black  eyes,  vigorous  moustache,  olive 
skin  warmed  by  the  sun,  and  red  mouth  of  Legros  confronted 
him. 

"What's  that  old  poll  parrot  been  talking  about?"  the 
aide-de-camp  asked  Favrol  in  a  husky  whisper. 

"Art." 

"Art!  Holy  Moses!  What  I  want  is  a  woman,  a  real 
live  girl.  I'd  rather  talk  about  these  Viennese  high-flyers 
— where's  the  old  poll's  daughter?  What  did  she  leave  the 
box  for?  Hell  and  lightnings,  did  you  see  her  look  when  I 
squeezed  her  arm?  But  I'll  bring  her  down  a  peg.  I'll 
teach  her  to  respect  an  officer  of  la  Gr-r-rande  Anne'e! 
What's  the  matter?" 

"Nothing,"  Favrol  answered  indifferently,  "but  you'd 
better  not  forget  what  happened  to  Gavroche. " 

Gavroche  three  weeks  ago  had  been  sentenced  to  death 
by  Napoleon  for  offering  an  insult  to  the  Princess  Esterhazy 
within  the  precincts  of  Schonbrunn  itself,  and  had  only 
been  respited  on  the  urgent  intercession  of  the  entire  staff. 

"Oh,  I  didn't  mean  that, "  and  twirling  his  moustaches  to 
vertical  points  he  said  with  an  air  of  tipsy  gravity,  "  Charles- 
Aristide  Legros  is  too  much  a  man  of  honour  to  squeeze  a 
woman  against  her  will  a  second  time.  All  I  meant  was ' ' 


150  Schonbrunn 

Favrol  looked  down  at  the  stalls.  In  the  crowd  which 
was  increasing  amongst  the  fauteuils  he  suddenly  saw  the 
Countess  Amalie.  She  was  in  white;  and  to  his  eyes  her 
dress,  from  the  ostrich  plumes  above  her  hair  down  to  the 
white  silk  shoes,  became  a  shimmering  cloud.  No  other 
woman  in  that  room  was  quite  like  her — the  brow,  the  fine 
nostrils,  the  poise  of  the  classic  head,  the  symmetries  of  the 
figure,  shoulders,  waist,  and  hips.  Beauty  streamed  from 
that  woman,  environing  her  with  a  raiment  of  sorcery;  yes, 
of  her  that  word  could  be  spoken. 

A  deep  melancholy  invaded  Favrol;  an  aria  of  Pergolese 
sang  in  his  ears  like  a  refrain  from  an  irrevocable  past, 

"Si  cerca,  si  dice,  "L'amico  infelice, 

"L'amico  dov'e?"    .  "Respondi,  mort." 

Favrol  had  never  told  himself  that  he  was  in  love  with 
Amalie  von  Esterthal;  but  in  her  society  he  experienced  a 
sentiment  for  which  he  had  to  coin  the  phrase  "serene 
splendour. "  In  their  talks  he  had  again  and  again  met  with 
unexpected  utterances  which,  he  judged  could  only  have 
arisen  in  a  mind  habituated  to  unusual  thought,  and  with 
a  capacity  for  suffering  or  bliss  beyond  that  of  most  women. 
Leaving  the  Palazzo  one  afternoon  in  September  he  had,  as 
he  sauntered  along  the  ramparts,  compared  the  conversa- 
tion, because  of  its  subtleties,  to  the  talk  of  two  mathe- 
maticians upon  the  motion  of  a  wave  and  its  equations. 
But  instead  of  a  profound  study  of  curves  and  lines,  her  talk 
had  seemed  to  him  to  imply  the  profoundest  study  of  hu- 
man emotions  and  ideas. 

"Yes,  I  must  get  away  from  Vienna;  the  sooner  the 
better." 

In  Vienna  he  always  felt  beneath  himself.  Its  caste 
system  froze.  Artists,  composers,  poets,  unless  they  were 
men  of  birth,  were  in  Vienna  treated  like  valets.  Mozart 
had  been  kicked  out  of  doors,  nor  had  he  seemed  to  resent 


The  Mind  of  a  City  151 

the  outrage.  Yet  what  hideous  scarecrows  many  of  the 
women  were,  and  what  cretins  the  men!  Francis  II.  himself 
went  slinking  about  like  a  frightened  hound. 

Legros  meanwhile  looked  at  the  scene,  his  shining  black 
eyes  glancing  from  woman  to  woman,  finding  each  face, 
each  contour  desirable  or  indifferent. 

"By  God,"  he  said  to  Favrol,  pointing  to  the  semi- 
transparent  costumes  that  like  soft-hued  flowers  showed 
themselves  everywhere  about  the  theatre,  outlining  women's 
forms,  "when  a  young  man  in  Vienna  marries  he  knows  at 
least  what  he  is  marrying,  and  on  his  wedding  night  he  can 
have  little  either  to  learn  or  fear — eh?  Look  there!  Look 
at  those  two!  I've  got  as  much  on  when  I  go  slap  into  my 
bath.  Mon  Dieu,  Vienna's  the  place  to  study  the  perfec- 
tions of  the  feminine  figure!" 

The  old  Count  had  risen  abruptly,  and  placing  his  box  at 
the  command  of  his  two  enforced  guests,  he  excused  him- 
self. There  was  a  marked  touch  of  haughtiness  in  his 
courtesy. 

IV 

Downstairs  Count  Esterthal  forced  his  way  through  the 
crowd  with  some  difficulty,  ignoring  the  outstretched  hand 
of  friends  and  acquaintances.  The  one  subject  upon  which 
they  wished  to  speak  with  him,  was  the  one  subject  which 
he  wished  that  night  to  avoid.  He  reached  the  front  row 
of  the  stalls.  Amalie  smiled  to  him  from  a  distance  and 
raised  her  fan;  but  arrested  by  the  dense  crowd  the  Count 
shook  his  head  in  amused  perplexity.  He  stopped  to  take 
breath  beside  a  faded  crimson  curtain  looped  back  by  a 
cord  and  a  heavy  gold  tassel,  underneath  the  first  tier  of 
boxes. 

The  stalls  here  were  chiefly  occupied  by  French  officers, 
strangers  to  Esterthal.  Other  officers  from  various  parts  of 
the  theatre  had  joined  them.  All  were  talking  and  gesticu- 


152  Schonbrunn 

lating.  Further  back,  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  rows,  servants 
in  livery  with  numbers  affixed  to  their  hats  were  handing 
round  ices  and  sherbets. 

The  Count  turned  from  these  to  the  group  of  which 
Amalie  and  Toe  were  the  centre.  In  one  of  them  he  recog- 
nized Count  Markowitz,  Johann's  elder  brother;  beside  him 
stood  an  official  in  the  War  Department.  He  too,  like 
Markowitz,  was  a  dilettante  and  "patron  of  religion,  moral- 
ity, and  the  arts."  Kaas,  the  Dresden  landscape  painter, 
stood  a  little  behind,  stroking  his  long  fine  beard.  Amalie 
herself  was  talking  to  a  tall,  erect,  white-haired  old  man, 
with  a  distinguished  bearing  but  insignificant  features.  He 
wore  the  dress  of  an  abbe.  But  another  member  of  the 
group,  talking  to  the  Princess  Diirrenstein,  made  upon 
Count  Esterthal,  fatigued  as  he  was,  an  instantaneous  and 
extraordinary  impression.  This  was  a  man  of  middle  height 
powerfully  built,  slightly  aggressive  in  his  bearing.  His 
face,  dull  red  in  complexion,  was  marked  by  smallpox;  but 
a  countenance  more  commanding  in  its  genius,  a  head  more 
lion-like  in  its  tranquil  power,  its  masses  of  black  hair 
growing  low  on  the  forehead  which  they  seemed  to  grip  like 
a  helmet,  Count  Esterthal  had  never  seen;  and  for  one 
singular  moment  he  experienced  the  exact  sensation  which 
he  had  experienced  that  morning  in  looking  at  Bonaparte 
from  about  the  same  distance.  Mistrusting  his  own  sensa- 
tion, Esterthal  looked  at  Toe  and  then  at  the  face  of  the 
man  she  was  addressing.  His  eyes  were  half-closed;  but 
there  was  at  once  suspicion  and  the  most  haunting  pathos  in 
the  glances  which,  when  Toe  ceased  speaking  and  there  was 
a  silence,  these  eyes  cast  upon  the  faces  around;  nor  could 
anything  exceed  the  locked  energy  of  the  mouth,  the  con- 
flict of  extreme  suffering  and  extreme  will. 

"I  must  be  getting  old,  old  and  fanciful,  like  Wunnser  at 
Mantua,"  he  said  to  himself  irritatedly,  and  with  an  impa- 
tient step  he  advanced  towards  the  group. 


The  Mind  of  a  City  153 

There  he  exchanged  a  few  words  with  Count  Markowitz ; 
then  taking  Amalie's  arm  he  drew  her  aside.  Before  he  had 
spoken  a  word  she  had  divined  his  wish. 

"You  are  tired?  I  too  am  tired  a  little.  Let  us  go 
home, "  she  said  hurriedly. 

Uncertain  of  her  real  wishes  he  did  not  at  once  answer. 
He  had  divined  the  unrest  in  her  mood  all  day,  and  to-night 
at  the  Opera  under  her  tranquil  reserve  that  unrest,  he  had 
easily  perceived,  had  become  a  fever. 

"You  have  heard  nothing?"  she  said  carelessly. 

"Of  the  negotiations?     Nothing." 

She  turned,  hiding  her  pallor  and  under  her  lowered 
eyelids  her  eyes,  discouraged,  half-desperate,  seemed  to 
probe  every  corner  of  the  Opera. 

The  Count  to  gain  time  looked  at  the  group  from  which  he 
had  just  taken  her,  above  all  at  the  thick-set  figure  of  the 
stranger.  The  latter  now  stood  not  fifteen  feet  away,  so 
that  his  features  were  clearly  visible, — the  deep  dent  in  the 
chin,  the  changing  grey  and  blue  of  his  eyes,  deep-set  and 
under  thick,  dusky  brows.  His  voice,  though  he  softened 
his  sibilants  like  a  Rheinlander  when  he  answered  the  tall, 
white-haired  personage,  in  whom  Esterthal  now  recognized 
the  famous  organist  and  composer,  Abt  Vogler,  was  abrupt 
and  aggressive  as  his  bearing. 

"What,  you  here,  Beethoven?" 

Beethoven?  The  name  suggested  nothing  to  Count 
Esterthal. 

Piqued  at  his  ignorance  of  so  notable  a  personality  in 
Vienna,  the  Count  was  about  to  enquire  the  name  of  this 
man,  when  Amalie,  drawn  by  the  wild  hope  that  Rentzdorf 
might  be  waiting  for  her  at  the  Palazzo,  said  again, 

"Shall  we  go  home,  padrino?  Do  you  mind?  You  will 
see  Count  Markowitz  later.  I  have  asked  Charlotte  and 
him  to  supper.  Toe  too  is  coming.  They  are  all  going  to 
the  Rittersaal.  Prince  W. 


154  Schonbrunn 

A  shout  interrupted  her.  The  stage-manager  had  once 
more  appeared  in  front  of  the  curtain,  but  once  more  his 
excuses  and  appeals  were  silenced  by  the  angry  and  derisive 
hootings.  Amid  the  hubbub  in  French,  German,  and  Italian 
Count  Esterthal  and  Amalie  started  slowly  to  walk  towards 
the  main  entrance.  Near  the  extremity  of  the  parterre  a 
sudden  rush  of  a  part  of  the  audience  towards  the  stage, 
where  the  tumult  had  increased,  separated  them,  and  two 
acquaintances,  pouncing  on  Count  Esterthal,  announced  on 
"positive  information"  that  the  armistice  was  interrupted, 
that  Champagny  had  left  Altenburg,  that  Liechtenstein 
had  been  peremptorily  recalled  by  Francis  II.,  that  Stadion 
was  once  more  in  power  and  war  declared. 

"But  what  the  devil  is  happening  yonder?" 

The  old  Count  turned  his  impassive  face  backwards  to- 
wards the  stalls.  A  number  of  French  officers  had  sprung 
upon  the  stage  and  had  begun  to  sing  and  gesticulate  as 
though  acting  an  improvised  piece.  Others  roamed  about 
the  orchestra,  wrenching  the  instruments  from  the  players, 
and  amid  laughter  and  ironic  applause  began  themselves  to 
produce  the  most  ear-splitting  and  discordant  sounds,  whilst 
the  officers  on  the  stage  imitated  the  crowing  of  cocks,  the 
barking  of  dogs,  the  mewing  of  cats,  or  neighed  like  horses. 

"C'est  une  emeute, "  someone  said  beside  him. 

It  was  a  riot,  but  as  yet  it  was  good-natured. 


Amalie  had  made  her  way  alone  to  the  entrance.  There 
she  stopped  and  stood  for  some  seconds  looking  back.  The 
light  was  dim.  The  parterre  of  the  Vienna  Opera  House, 
like  the  parterres  of  all  German  theatres  at  that  period,  was 
lighted  by  candles  and  a  few  oil  lamps. 

She  was  about  to  return  in  search  of  her  father-in-law 
when  from  the  direction  of  the  boxes  behind  Her  on  her 


The  Mind  of  a  City  155 

left  she  saw  or  thought  she  saw  an  officer  in  the  uniform 
of  Kinsky's  Horse  make  towards  her  through  the  crowd — 
tall,  very  erect,  with  an  air  of  extreme  distinction  at  once 
in  his  features  and  his  bearing,  yet  it  was  the  bearing  of  a 
poet  or  artist  rather  than  that  of  a  soldier. 

Amalie  in  the  dusk  looked  at  him  unrecognizing,  though 
conscious  that  her  heart  was  beating  wildly;  then,  mortally 
pale,  she  stood  still,  suppressing  the  cry  of  half -delirious 
joy  and  suffocating  tears. 

The  next  instance  her  lover  was  bending  over  her  out- 
stretched hands. 

"Heinrich!     Caro  mio,  mio  diletto,  mio  diletto.    .    .    ." 

Her  voice  trembled  in  every  syllable,  but  the  unforgotten 
and  unforgettable  language  of  her  girlhood  was  cadenced 
like  a  passion-song.  It  was  the  very  language  of  passion; 
the  language  of  all  intense  feeling,  of  suffering  or  of  joy. 

His  eyes  drank  in  like  an  enchanted  wine  each  seduction 
of  her  figure,  from  her  brow  under  its  high  nodding  plumes 
to  the  brilliants  that  flashed  on  her  shoes. 

"How  you  are  beautiful!"  he  said.  "Great  God,  to  see 
you  again — this,  this!  It  is  madness  to  look  at  you. " 

"Heinrich,  Heinrich,  speak  to  me!  You  have  come? 
I  was  going  away.  Whose  is  that  uniform?  How  badly 
it  fits  your  shoulders !  It  is  too  narrow. " 

She  was  trembling  in  every  limb. 

He  laughed  and  his  voice  chimed  strangely  with  hers, 
burdened  with  the  same  delirious  bliss. 

And  maddened  by  her  beauty,  the  burning  rose  on  her 
face,  her  smile,  the  ardently  parted  lips,  he  bent  again  over 
her  hands. 

"Ah,  not  here,"  she  said  faintly;  "this  way — come  this 
way, "  she  entreated,  "come  with  me. "  She  drew  him  im- 
petuously into  an  obscurer  angle. 

"Caro  mio,  I  love  you,  I  love  you,"  she  whispered  again, 
and  to  his  blinding  surprise  her  lips  touched  his  lips.  "How 


156  Schonbrunn 

are  you  here?  You  have  not  told  me.  Or  have  you'told 
me?"  she  repeated,  dazed  by  her  own  bliss. 

He  laughed  and  answered — "I  am  here  as  one  of  Prince 
Liechtenstein's  aides.  Zettich — you  remember  little  Karl 
August  von  Zettich? — I  have  his  passport  and  his  uniform. 
Seven  of  our  men  have  been  arrested  as  spies.  Schonbrunn 
is  a  nest  of  angry  wasps.  But  where  were  you  going? " 

She  remembered  Zettich.  He  had  the  courage  of  a 
demon.  Like  Rentzdorf  he  belonged  to  Kinsky's  Horse, 
which  since  Aspern  had  become  legendary  for  its  courage 
wherever  German  was  spoken.  At  Znaim  Rentzdorf  had 
at  the  peril  of  his  own  life  saved  Zettich's,  rescuing  him  from 
under  his  horse  after  sabring  two  Polish  lancers. 

"Going?  I  do  not  know  what  I  am  saying.  Yes,  I  was 
going,  but  ..." 

The  uproar  on  the  stage  riveted  every  eye.  They  were 
for  this  brief  moment  practically  alone. 

"Listen,  beloved,"  she  said  hurriedly.  "There  is  a 
supper  party  before  the  masked  ball.  You  know  about  it 
— the  ball,  I  mean?  Come  to  supper;  come  to  me  at  ten. 
We  shall  go  together  to  the  Rittersaal.  Toe  will  manage 
that  you  enter.  She  is  in  front  there,  talking  with  Marko- 
witz  and  Beethoven." 

The  passion  burning  in  her  eyes  dazzled  him. 

"You  do  not  wish  to  see  Beethoven  to-night?  Ah  God, 
I  have  to  leave  you.  There  is  padrino." 

"There  is  nothing  on  earth  save  you,"  she  whispered 
and  the  next  instant  she  was  standing  beside  padrino  under 
the  wide  awning  outside  the  Opera  House. 

The  old  Count  peered  with  angry  eyes  from  group  to 
group, — carriages,  sedan-chairs,  phaetons,  hackney  coaches, 
link-boys,  and  mingling  here  and  there  with  the  blaze  of 
servants'  liveries  the  brown  uniforms  and  white  epaulettes 
of  the  new  Viennese  gendarmerie. 

"Why  are  these  fellows  loafing  outside?"  he  grumbled, 


The  Mind  of  a  City  157 

glaring  at  the  gendarmes.     "They  ought  to  be  clearing  the 
house  of  those  dogs. " 

He  did  not  care  a  straw  for  the  piece ;  but  the  arrogance  of 
the  French  in  interrupting  the  performance  had  exasperated 
his  pride. 


VI 


"We  are  nearly  arrived, "  Amalie  said  to  padrino  twenty 
minutes  later.  "You  are  not  cold?" 

Glancing  out  of  the  window  of  the  carriage  she  saw  rise, 
spectral  in  the  darkness,  the  sinister  black  hexagonal  tower 
of  the  Lowel  Bastion. 

The  old  Count,  still  crouched  in  the  corner  into  which  he 
sank  on  leaving  the  Opera,  lifted  his  head  wearily.  Had 
the  lumbering  gilt-laden  Estherthal  coach  been  his  coffin 
he  would  not  have  greatly  cared.  These  home-comings 
from  the  Opera  always  made  him  feel  his  isolation  and  his 
age.  The  tramp  to  the  grave  that  every  man  must  com- 
plete alone — "C'est  ga,  c'est  gal" 

Two  minutes  later  the  carriage  stopped.  The  link-boys 
thrust  their  torches  into  the  sockets  fixed  in  the  iron  railings. 
The  glare  lighted  up  the  ancient  stones.  The  smoke  above 
the  yellow  flames  rose  in  little  jets  of  blue  and  grey. 

Amalie  sprang  lightly  from  the  carriage  and  swinging 
round  stood  drinking  in  the  cool  night  air  fragrant  with 
shrub,  flower,  and  tree. 

In  the  hall,  which  was  large  and  badly  lighted,  a  servant 
with  powdered  hair  came  forward  and  handed  her  a  letter 
on  a  silver  salver.  The  courier,  he  said,  was  waiting  to 
take  back  the  answer.  He  was  to  start  again  for  Buda- 
Pesth  at  midnight. 

Amalie  tore  open  the  letter.  It  was,  she  knew,  from  her 
husband.  The  light  from  a  bronze  candelabra  fell  on  her 
neck  and  finely  modelled  shoulders  as  she  read. 


158  Schonbrunn 

The  letter  was  elaborately  worded,  yet  singularly  am- 
biguous, and  in  some  parts  obviously  insincere.  He  antici- 
pated, he  said,  a  renewal  of  the  war.  His  corps  had  been 
ordered  nearer  to  the  Bohemian  frontier;  in  two  days  they 
were  to  be  at  Troppau  and  there  await  "developments." 
Metternich,  it  was  rumoured,  had  been  recalled.  He 
himself  might  be  in  Vienna  next  day ;  he  might  be  detained 
for  an  indefinite  time.  In  any  case,  the  honour  of  kissing 
her  hand  was  unavoidably  deferred. 

"Ah,  merci!"  she  said  under  her  breath.  "God  be 
praised  for  that,  anyhow!" 

Aloud  she  asked,  "Where  is  the  courier?" 

"He  is  resting,  Madame,"  the  servant  answered.  "He 
will  require  a  fresh  horse.  I  have  informed  his  Highness." 

"I  will  give  you  the  answer  in  an  hour.  He  can  have 
Sigismund  if  the  Count  cannot  spare  a  mount.  Rothgar, 
the  bay,  I  shall  want  to-morrow." 

"And  Father  Giacomo?"  the  servant  said  hesitatingly. 
"He  came  again  this  evening  and  awaits  your  Serenity. " 

But  at  that  moment  a  Capuchin  friar,  preceded  by  an- 
other servant  in  livery,  came  forward,  and  lifting  his  hood 
discovered  Fra  Giacomo's  fine  intellectual  features,  the 
mask  of  the  Italian  priest  of  the  higher  ranks. 

Involuntarily  she  bent  her  head  to  receive  his  blessing. 

"Forgive  me,"  she  said  in  Italian.  "You  have  been 
kept  waiting. " 

"This  makes  amends." 

She  knew  the  imprudence  and  even  the  danger  of  receiv- 
ing a  Capuchin  in  her  house,  but  danger  allured  her,  and 
this  man  had  been  her  mother's  confessor,  and,  like  her 
mother,  was  a  Lombard  of  great  family.  During  the  war 
he  had  acted  bravely;  for,  though  not  an  Austrian,  he  had 
been  one  of  the  devoted  band  who  in  the  thick  of  the  fight 
had  carried  the  wafer  in  a  consecrated  box  to  the  dying  in 
battle  after  battle  from  Eckmiihl  to  Wagram. 


The  Mind  of  a  City  159 

They  spoke  together  for  some  minutes  in  low  voices. 
She  heard  again  in  the  Lombard  tongue  the  familiar  phrases 
about  the  poverty  and  the  suffering  in  Vienna ;  the  price  of 
bread — in  the  Leopoldstadt  black  bread  had  risen  to  ten 
kreutzers  the  loaf;  no  meat  was  to  be  had  except  horse-flesh 
in  that  quarter,  and  in  the  villages  no  meat  of  any  kind. 
Winter  was  coming. 

"Yes,  yes;  I  know, "  she  said  wearily,  yet  not  impatiently. 

The  friar,  though  her  face  was  hidden,  seemed  to  read  her 
thoughts.  The  set  of  his  mouth  became  more  rigid. 

To  Amalie  Christ  had  long  ceased  to  be  a  force  in  her 
spiritual  life,  and,  possessor  through  Rentzdorf  of  another 
vision  of  good  and  evil,  she  had  little  patience  with  Dom 
Giacomo's  superficial  subtleties;  yet  Jesus'  ethics  still  exer- 
cized a  sentimental  control  over  her  conduct ;  the  sound  of  a 
vesper  bell  still  had  a  power  over  her  soul ;  she  clung  tena- 
ciously to  Monza's  cloistered  calm,  to  the  memories  of  her 
girlhood  there,  her  early  dreams  of  sainthood  or  heroic 
romance. 

"Shall  I  see  the  steward?"  the  Capuchin  asked,  vexed 
with  himself,  and  desirous  to  end  her  embarrassment. 

"Yes,"  she  said  quickly,  "see  Adrian;  I  will  send  him  to 
you  at  once. " 

She  gave  an  order  to  the  servant. 

"God  keep  you  in  His  holy  guard,"  Fra  Giacomo  said 
in  Italian,  pulling  forward  his  hood. 

VII 

Amalie  went  straight  to  her  boudoir — the  room  immedi- 
ately adjoining  that  in  which  that  morning  she  had  dis- 
covered Toe  in  corset  and  petticoat  stationed  before  her 
toilet  table. 

The  door  of  this  room  once  closed  behind  her,  the  hate- 
fulness  in  things  was  exorcised  or  excluded,  and  in  its  still- 
ness and  memories  she  could  surrender  herself  to  her  joy. 


160  Schonbrunn 

Her  maid  in  the  bedroom  was  already  busying  herself 
with  her  dress;  but  even  for  the  supper  she  had  still  two 
hours,  and  for  the  ball  she  would  not  start  till  midnight  at 
the  earliest.  She  gave  Tita  some  direction,  ordered  a  bath, 
returned  to  the  boudoir,  and,  sitting  down  in  front  of  the 
fire,  she  stretched  out  her  hands  to  the  blaze.  The  flames 
sparkled  on  her  rings  and  lighted  up  the  modelling  of  her 
ringers  and  the  exquisitely  rounded,  firm  white  wrists. 

"The  vision  beatific?"  she  murmured,  impelled  by  some 
reflection  of  the  day  and  an  interview  with  Toe  late  that 
afternoon.  "Lost  in  this,  God  in  me  sees  His  end — His 
goal;  that  is  the  vision  beatific,  my  beloved,  O  my  beloved." 

Her  lover's  face  rose  before  her  now  in  a  celestial  efful- 
gence; her  lover's  voice,  trembling  with  adoration — it  had 
the  accents  of  her  own  heart's  craving,  the  world-soul's 
craving. 

Sighing,  she  flung  herself  back  and  lay  with  closed  eyes, 
conscious  of  the  charmed  stillness  and  faint  perfumes  of  the 
room,  conscious  of  the  darkness  outside,  the  garden,  the 
motionless  trees,  the  dark  environing  earth  outstretched 
under  the  night-sky. 

Here  in  this  room,  in  the  ornaments  or  in  the  books,  as  in 
her  bedroom  in  the  very  articles  on  her  toilet  table,  were 
objects  sanctified  by  some  hour  of  passion's  ecstatic  vision 
darker  or  diviner  than  its  predecessors.  And  here  above  all 
on  the  shelves  of  a  cabinet  in  tulip-wood,  were  Rentzdorf 's 
own  writings  in  various  editions  and  bindings,  priceless  to 
her  during  this  frightful  campaign  as  to  her  sister  Ulrica  in 
the  convent  at  Prague  her  prayer-book — a  new  God  indeed 
and  a  new  missal,  but  more  overpoweringly  glorious  day 
by  day. 

And  it  was  just  this  constant  appeal  to  the  universal  and 
to  the  transcendental  which,  to  her  rigid  own  self-examin- 
ing, redeemed  Amalie  von  Esterthal's  judgment  upon  her 
motives  from  mere  self-approbation  or  empty  self-will. 


The  Mind  of  a  City  161 

Outside  God  there  was  for  her  no  reality,  no  goodness,  no 
knowledge,  no  vision,  no  joy.  But  this  that  she  lived,  this 
that  she  knew,  this  was  very  God. 

In  the  same  cabinet  on  the  same  or  on  a  separate  shelf, 
were  the  writers  for  whom  Rentzdorf  had  kindled  her  inter- 
est— the  Spanish  dramatists  Tirso  and  Calderon,  Jacobi's 
translation  of  Hamlet  and  four  other  Shakespearian 
plays,  Wieland's  Oberon  and  Holderlin's  romantic  fantasy 
Hyperion. 

She  felt  a  smile  about  her  lips  and,  opening  her  eyes, 
glanced  round  the  fragrant  twilight  of  the  room,  lit  only  by 
the  fire  and  a  single  silver  lamp,  and  closed  her  eyes  again. 

Her  lover's  voice  thrilled  in  her  ears ;  his  thoughts  in  her 
spirit;  his  hand-clasp  on  her  breast.  Impatient  to  have 
something  of  his,  she  took  out  one  of  her  favourites  amongst 
his  books  —  the  Runes  of  the  Acropolis.  Rentzdorf  had 
wished  to  destroy  every  copy  but  she  had  several. 

"I  hear  your  voice.  You  are  here, — the  characters, 
protagonist  and  denteragonist,  the  others,  men  and 
women." 

"What  can  it  be  like  to  have  a  poet  for  a  lover?  "  Toe  had 
once  asked  her.  "It  must  be  idyllic,  to  sip  the  cream  of 
all  his  thoughts — his  poems,  to  read  his  books,  and  to  know 
the  veriest  thoughts  of  his  very  heart  upon  all  things. " 

"Idyllic  perhaps;  but  stormy  a  little?  It  should  not  be 
exactly  a  tranquil  existence — do  you  suppose?" 

In  her  admiration  for  the  Runes  Amalie  was  not  unjusti- 
fied. The  fever  which  tormented  Rentzdorf 's  manhood 
burned  in  those  pages  which  he  thrust  aside  with  so 
unfeigned  an  impatience.  Greek  tragedy  there  was  re- 
cast, and  spoke  in  accents  of  a  spiritual  anguish  transfigured 
by  his  own  unrest.  Where,  he  demanded  in  an  early  para- 
graph, was  that  Heiterkeit,  that  serener  calm  which  Winkel- 
mann  had  already  made  fashionable  as  the  characteristic 
of  Greek  thought,  art,  culture,  and  Greek  life?  Thu- 


162  Schonbrunn 

cydides  was  not  heiter,  nor  was  Herodotus  serene.  Despair, 
fierce  suffering,  was  not  unknown  in  the  Cyclades ;  and  from 
Pindar  and  from  Homer,  as  from  Archilochus  and  Hesiod, 
it  was  easy  to  cite  judgments  upon  human  life  frightful 
as  that  of  Lear  or  (Edipus.  In  the  same  manner  the  lords 
of  those  who  know — Empedocles,  Orpheus,  Plato,  Heraclei- 
tus,  and  Julian — were  made  in  this  transfiguring  light 
to  pass  before  the  reader,  and  spoke  or  answered.  And 
the  Parthenon  reappeared,  this  earth's  masterpiece  of 
beauty,  the  Doric  columns,  the  frieze,  the  shapes  of  colossal 
loveliness,  transfigured  by  the  eyes  that  had  gazed  on  their 
sun-steeped  marbles;  and  the  tragedy  in  stone  was  subtly 
woven  into  the  tragedy  of  human  life  itself  the  transiency 
of  things,  the  eternal  mystery'of  birth,  persistence,  and  the 
grave. 

"He  who  defines  Existence,  defines  suffering.  Being  is 
the  transient;  it  is  that  which  perishes  and  ought  to  perish. 
The  Beautiful,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  mirage  of  that 
which  is  beyond  Being,  of  that  which  is  not  yet;  that  which 
God  desires  to  be,  and  to  be  eternally.  Therefore  its  per- 
fect symbol  is  death,  and  its  test  is  the  ardour  of  the  death- 
desire  which  it  provokes  within  man;  for  this  desire  is  the 
desire  to  be  one  with  the  end  towards  which  throughout 
eternity  God  strives."  "The  existent,  all  that  is,"  he 
said  in  another  paragraph,  "is  on  fire  with  the  world-soul's 
anguish;  but  to  that  anguish,  inscrutable  in  its  origin,  the 
universe  owes  its  origin;  the  Beautiful  is  the  vision  of  that 
which  shall  arise  when  the  world-soul's  strife  is  attained. " 

She  laughed  in  restless  happiness  reimagining  the  inci- 
dent and  other  kindred  moments.  But  the  laugh  startled 
her  from  her  trance;  and  she  recollected  the  waiting  courier. 

"Mon  Dieu!     To  write  a  letter  now — and  to  him?" 

Walking  up  and  down,  her  shadow  moved  beside  her  on 
the  floor  as  she  passed  and  repassed  in  front  of  the  silver 
lamp  that  stood  on  a  cabinet  richly  inlaid  and  decorated 


The  Mind  of  a  City  163 

with  paintings  on  porcelain  representing  some  scenes  in 
Arcady. 

But  she  tore  herself  from  the  seductive  enticements 
drowning  her,  and  sitting  down  she  began  the  letter,  but 
tore  up  the  first  copy;  then  very  rapidly,  then  very  slowly, 
weighing  the  syllables,  she  commenced  a  second  copy. 
But  she  found  the  task  difficult;  for  the  more  she  considered 
the  letter  she  had  received  the  more  she  felt  convinced  that 
its  words  were  meant  not  for  her  but  for  Napoleon's  police. 

"That?"  she  thought;  "is  it  that  again?" 

The  "That"  to  which  she  referred  was  her  husband's 
visit  to  Vienna  a  few  weeks  ago  in  violation  of  his  parole 
to  Napoleon. 

She  knit  her  brows;  but  abruptly  she  thrust  aside  the 
fear.  Nevertheless,  she  was  careful  to  answer  the  letter 
in  accordance  with  its  tenor.  In  this  she  was  loyal. 

"It  is  done!"  she  said. 

Her  glad  cry  was  like  a  school-girl's  liberated  from  a  task. 
She  glanced  down  the  page  with  knit  brows.  Her  style 
was  ornate  as  Count  Esterthal's  own.  She  burnt  her  fingers 
as  she  sealed  the  letter. 

"Tutf  £  menzogna,"  she  said,  stamping  her  foot  involun- 
tarily. "No;  the  only  lie  is  the  world's  lie.  This,  this  is 
reality — each  timeless  hour.  What  other  truth,  what  other 
God  is  there  or  can  be?" 

A  light  as  of  very  heaven  descended  on  her  face.  Her 
spirit,  onward-driving  on  waves  of  sunlight,  rushed  to  the 
event.  And  in  and  through  that  soul,  thus  in  ecstasy,  a 
mightier,  darker  power  strove  to  an  end  not  her  end,  to  a 
peace  not  her  peace. 

Her  maid,  re-entering,  announced  that  the  bath  was  ready. 

"The  bath?" 

Amalie  had  forgotten  her  own  order.  She  took  off  her 
necklace,  her  bracelets,  her  rings,  laying  them  one  by  one 
on  her  dressing-table,  and  began  slowly  to  undress. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  MAKING  OF  A  POET 


IN  the  autumn  of  1808  it  was  rumoured  in  Viennese  literary 
circles  that  Goethe  was  at  work  upon  a  new  novel,  the 
Elective  Affinities.  Shortly  afterwards  there  arose  one  night 
in  Rentzdorf's  lodging  in  the  Rothenthurm  a  discussion  of 
the  methods  of  fiction  and  the  drama,  and  Axel  Petersen, 
impatient  to  submit  all  literary  forms  to  the  hydraulic 
press  of  the  four-act  play,  had  derided  as  bad  art  the  novel- 
ist's habit  of  inserting  character  sketches  of  the  various 
personages  in  the  romance  as  they  successively  appear. 
"Absurd  in  a  drama,"  Rentzdorf  had  asked,  "but  is  it  so 
absurd  in  a  novel?  The  novelist  by  a  single  page  has  to  do 
for  the  reader  all  that  in  the  drama  is  entrusted  to  the  ac- 
tor's genius,  to  costume,  to  scenery,  to  facial  expression, 
gesture,  voice,  silences.  Besides,  a  novel  is  un  miroir  qui  se 
promene — and  in  everyday  life  what  is  more  common  than 
that  on  your  first  introduction  to  a  distinguished  man,  every 
friend  or  acquaintance  acts  in  just  the  manner  that  you 
censure  in  Agathon  or  Wilhelm  Meister?  To  me,  with  all 
its  prolixity,  the  latter  book  is  serene  as.  an  autumn  day  in 
Attica." 

Rentzdorf,  who  has  noted  the  incident  in  a  scrapbook 
destined  to  be  worked  into  a  volume  on  the  art-forms  of  his 
time,  can  have  had  no  anticipation  that  exactly  a  century 

164 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  165 

later  it  would  be  quoted  on  this  page  by  an  English  writer 
in  defence  of  a  summary  of  his  own  career  in  a  novel  in 
which  he  figures  side  by  side  with  Napoleon. 

Heinrich  von  Rentzdorf  was  now  in  his  thirty-first  or 
thirty-second  year.  His  life  in  Austria  had  been  the  life 
of  an  artist  tormented  by  the  intellectual  unrest  of  his  era — 
its  scepticisms,  political  violence,  spiritual  ardours,  reac- 
tions, and  wrathful  despairs. 

Genius  for  religion  is  rare  as  genius  for  art.  Rentzdorf 
possessed  both. 

"I  can  scarcely  remember  the  time, "  he  had  said  once  to 
Count  Johann,  "when  in  my  breast  two  passions  or  two 
wills  were  not  in  conflict — the  passion  for  Art  and  the  pas- 
sion for  Religion,  the  will  to  Beauty  and  the  will  to  Truth. 
And  to  this  day,  when  I  descend  into  myself  I  recognize  the 
same  two  forces.  They  have  dominated  and  dominate  my 
entire  life.  Their  conflict  is  that  life.  And  yet  what  a 
waste  and  sterile  history  is  mine!  For  seven  years  religion 
to  me  meant  no  more  than  an  incessant  sifting  and  testing, 
or  an  endless  accusing  and  defending  of  faiths  and  philo- 
sophies of  other  eras  and  of  other  minds — of  one  faith  and 
philosophy  above  all,  that  of  Jesus  the  Christ.  Morning 
by  morning  I  sprang  from  my  bed  and,  flinging  back  the 
curtains,  saw  the  glory  of  another  day.  Why  had  it 
been  given  me?  And  on  the  instant  the  enchantment  was 
shattered;  the  splendour  was  fog  and  dust.  I  searched  in 
my  own  heart ;  I  brooded  over  the  processes  of  my  faculties ; 
I  pondered  the  mediaeval  theologians  and  the  system- 
mongers  of  modern  times.  And  in  Kant  as  in  Aquinas  I 
found  but  variant  upon  variant  of  the  dreary  eternal  story 
of  Eden,  Israel,  Nazareth,  and  Golgotha.  'What  art 
thou,'  the  fathers  at  Gratz  used  to  say  to  me,  'that  puttest 
questions  unto  God? '  I  knew  it  well,  that  priggish  refrain. 
I  knew  it  in  St.  Augustine  as  in  Dante  and  St.  Paul.  And  to 


1 66  Schonbrunn 

what  other  end  was  I  born,  I  asked,  except  to  put  questions 
unto  God?  What  right  thus  to  interrogate  is  greater  than 
my  right?  Dragged  unasked  out  of  the  deep  sleep  of  Noth- 
ingness, flung  down  tortured  into  this  torture-chamber  of  a 
universe,  this  measureless  vast  of  suffering  in  uncounted 
worlds  down  the  unreckonable  years — what  other  question 
shall  I  ask?  The  hour  that  I  forget  that  question  is  blasted. 
And  still  they  spoke  of  Jesus,  as  if  that  nursery  tale,  because 
it  had  amused  the  slow  wit  or  served  the  cunning  hypocrisy 
of  eighteen  hundred  years,  were  an  all-heal;  until  at  length 
his  very  name  became  a  symbol  of  ennui;  his  religion,  an 
angry  loathing,  a  triumphant  imposture  or  dull  fatuity  that, 
like  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  the  stars,  for  eighteen  hundred 
years  had  made  bestial  the  European  mind.  Why  had  this 
dogmatist,  Aryan,  or  Hebrew,  robbed  me  of  my  birthright, 
my  spirit's  unfettered  contemplation  of  the  world,  beggared 
posterity  and  made  all  our  thinking,  all  our  faiths  accept- 
ances or  contradictions  of  his  own  theorizings  and  poor 
scheme  of  things?  'Jesus  a  God?'  I  could  no  longer  see  in 
him  even  an  heroic  man .  .  .  .  " 

Count  Johann  laughed. 

"And  yet, "  Rentzdorf  went  on  in  a  changed  voice,  "there 
had  been  a  time,  there  had  been  a  time.  .  .  .  My  God, 
Johann,  the  very  midnight  of  the  world-soul's  anguish 
seemed  to  possess  my  soul  when  at  Gratz  I  heard  in  St. 
^Egidius  the  Tenebra.  Now  when  I  see  those  same  white- 
robed  Dominicans  I  say  in  my  heart — These  are  they  who 
lie,  not  unto  men,  but  unto  God.  Eh  bien,  that  seven  years' 
struggle  terminated  only  for  another  to  begin.  I  had  re- 
jected Christ.  But  the  highest  in  me  still  seemed  at  waf 
with  itself,  God  with  God.  I  studied  nature  and  read  books, 
for  months  I  sacrificed  days  and  nights  in  solitary  medita- 
tion, hoping  that  some  vision,  some  wide  principle,  would 
arise  within  me  or  without  me ;  I  admired  or  argued  against 
the  principles  of  others;  but  in  vain.  Was  I,  the  German 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  167 

who  had  rejected  Christ,  to  accept  the  Greek  Plato  or 
the  Hindu  Gotama?  The  former's  hair-splitting  myths, 
the  latter's  renunciation,  which  is  a  cheaper  death,  were 
meaningless  as  Kant's  imperative  or  Spinoza's  causa  sui. 
And  what  was  their  mandate  to  me  except  'Submit! 
Submit!  Christ  is  the  best.  Be  wise  and  stick  to  him.' " 

"And  believing  this,"  Johann  had  answered,  "think- 
ing these  thoughts,  you  yet  waste  yourself  in  going  to 
war  against  Bonaparte,  that  more  self -confident,  brilliant 
mediocrity?" 

"Believing  this,  thinking  these  things,  I  go  to  fight  against 
Bonaparte.  Hero  or  mediocrity,  he  fights  for  his  own 
hand. " 

Even  to  indifferent  observers  of  Rentzdorf's  youth,  the 
deeply  religious  bias  of  his  nature  quickly  revealed  itself. 

"He  will  never  make  either  a  diplomatist  or  a  councillor, " 
his  uncle  had  said  to  Rentzdorf's  mother.  "He  has  too 
hot  a  head  for  affairs.  Send  him  to  Gratz.  The  Jesuit 
fathers  will  at  least  teach  him  the  ancient  languages  and  the 
rudiments  of  modern  theology.  Every  man  in  these  times 
ought  to  be  able  to  read  Zeno  and  Plato  and  yet  have  the 
chance  of  growing  up  a  Christian,  if  in  the  long  run  he  pre- 
fers Galilee  to  Athens. " 

Rentzdorf's  uncle,  a  man  in  mid-life,  with  blue  eyes  and  a 
fine  full-grown  beard,  dressing  in  top-boots  and  a  green 
hunting  suit,  was  a  professed  Epicurean,  but  cultured  and 
tolerant,  living  in  tranquil  indolence  from  year's  end  to 
year's  end  on  his  domain  near  Mohacz — those  acres  of  heath 
and  mountain  scrub  dotted  by  blast  furnaces  and  copper 
mines,  and  in  more  fertile  spots  by  farm  steadings,  across 
which  Rentzdorf  played  as  a  child.  Feudalism  in  such  re- 
treats had  still  in  Austria  its  full  vigour,  unaffected  by 
Joseph  II. 's  "reforms." 

Two  months  after  this  interview  Rentzdorf  was  at  Gratz. 
Its  fortress,  dark  with  memories  of  the  wars  of  Ferdinand 


168  Schonbrunn 

II.  and  Wallenstein,  its  watchmen  telling  the  hours  of  the 
night  in  the  Styrian  dialect,  and  at  dawn  saluting  the  rising 
sun  with  a  blare  of  trumpets  and  the  long  roll  of  the  Styrian 
drum,  made  a  background  of  romance  to  his  boyish  musings. 

At  Gratz  his  intellectual  supremacy  quickly  showed  itself. 
Every  form  of  study  allured  him  in  turn — the  classical  lan- 
guages, music,  drawing,  painting,  mathematics,  modelling 
in  clay,  verse- writing  in  French  and  Italian,  as  in  German. 
His  imagination  already  answered  to  Nature's  summons. 
Now  he  would  stand  rapt  before  a  sunset,  now  before  a 
pageantry  of  feigned  experiences  vivid  as  actuality,  tri- 
umphs, heroic  defeats,  strange  loves;  at  another  time  he 
would  turn  from  his  sketch-book  or  easel  in  a  frenzy  of 
despair,  staring  at  a  wide  and  most  living  landscape  whose 
twilight  mystery  he  felt  in  every  throbbing  vein  but  could 
not  fasten  to  his  canvas. 

The  multiplicity  of  his  gifts  wore  down  his  health  and  ir- 
ritated his  teachers.  His  manners  puzzled  or  enraged  his 
companions;  for  he  was  already  immoderate  in  his  attach- 
ments as  in  his  antipathies,  and  subject  to  paroxysms  of 
jealousy  or  insight  which  darkened  or  vexed  his  mind  irre- 
sistibly as  a  storm  the  lake. 

An  affection  of  the  eyes  suddenly  paralysed  all  effort  and 
gave  his  overstrained  mind  the  repose  it  needed.  Reading 
was  forbidden;  painting  had  to  be  abandoned  forever; 
but  he  was  allowed  paper  and  a  pencil.  In  this  crisis  the 
old  power  over  words,  proved  by  the  ease  with  which  he 
could  imitate  in  Latin  the  cadences  of  Propertius  and  in 
French  those  of  Racine,  came  as  a  beneficence  from  on  high. 
Poetry  became  for  him  the  art  of  arts,  superior  even  to  music 
and  sculpture. 

It  was  the  year  1794. 

Immured  within  the  Jesuit  seminary,  Rentzdorf  and  other 
young  Austrians  knew  next  to  nothing  of  the  true  sequence 
of  events  in  France.  The  States  General  had  met;  the 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  169 

Bastille  had  fallen;  the  first  republic  had  been  proclaimed; 
a  Bourbon  king  and  a  Habsburg  princess  had  been  guillo- 
tined; Danton  had  spoken  his  great  defiance,  Valmy  had 
been  fought,  Brunswick  and  Klerfayt  repulsed,  Belgium 
annexed,  and  the  war  begun.  But  to  the  Jesuits'  pupils 
all  this  had  been  presented  through  a  coloured  and  dis- 
torting medium. 

Gradually  something  of  the  truth  pierced  the  ramparts  of 
calumny  or  silence.  The  effect  was  correspondingly  great. 
To  these  young  men,  whilst  they  had  slept  the  morning  sleep 
of  youth,  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  appeared  to  have 
arisen.  By  the  Jesuit  fathers  the  principles  of  the  Encyclo- 
pedie  and  the  teachings  of  Rousseau,  Helvetius,  Diderot, 
and  Voltaire,  had  been  branded  as  those  of  Antichrist; 
but  when  the  victories  of  Pichegru  and  Moreau  followed 
those  of  Dumouriez,  when  in  the  north  Belgium  and  Holland 
were  overrun  and,  in  the  east,  the  frontiers  of  France  ex- 
tended to  the  Alps,  the  question  flamed  up  in  every  generous 
heart — Can  these  indeed  be  the  victories  of  Antichrist? 
Can  God  indeed  have  laid  under  His  interdict  the  writings 
which  have  kindled  such  heroism  as  this  of  Marceau,  Hoche, 
Kleber,  and  Desaix?  Is  Liberty  indeed  the  fruit  of  the  tree 
of  Death?  And  is  it  to  extend  the  dominion  of  Antichrist 
that  the  armies  of  France  are  conquering  a  world? 

The  date  for  Rentzdorf  to  leave  the  seminary  was  ap- 
proaching; yet  for  months  he  looked  forward  to  that  date 
not  with  joy  but  with  passionate  regret. 

Meanwhile,  his  father  had  died;  his  mother  and  sisters, 
though  retaining  the  house  in  Vienna,  had  settled  in  Hun- 
gary on  a  small  estate  near  his  uncle's  domain.  There 
Rentzdorf,  now  a  student  in  Vienna  University  regularly 
spent  his  vacations,  passing  long  days  alone  in  the  woods  or 
in  his  boat  on  the  Danube,  with  a  sister  to  whom  he  was 
attached,  often  till  far  into  the  night,  thinking  his  own 
thoughts,  dreaming  his  own  dreams,  whilst  he  watched  the 


170  Schonbrunn 

passage  of  a  star  from  branch  to  branch  as  it  crossed  a  rift 
of  sky. 

It  was  at  the  University  that  his  friendship  with  Bolli 
and  with  Count  Johann  Markowitz  began.  As  Austrians 
they  were  in  this  dilemma ;  they  were  bound  to  hate  France, 
yet  in  their  inner  life  they  found  no  thought  worth  thinking 
which  did  not  derive  its  colour  and  its  vivacity  from  that 
nation's  literature. 


ii 


The  ideal  of  knowledge  and  life  here  upon  the  earth  and 
now  had  for  a  period  been  to  Rentzdorf  the  determining 
result  of  the  Revolution. 

Later  he  was  to  put  to  this  knowledge  the  question — 
"What  art  thou?"  and  to  this  rejoicing  in  the  earth  here 
and  now — ' '  Why  art  thou  ?  And  in  what  and  in  whom  shall 
I  rejoice?" 

But  for  a  time  these  things  were  their  own  end. 

To  know  all,  to  experience  all,  to  be  all — to  know  the 
bond  attaching  this  Daedalian  world  to  its  Originator,  to 
know  the  bond  uniting  his  own  heart  to  the  universe  and 
to  its  Originator;  to  rejoice  in  all — in  man's  wisdom,  the 
creations  of  art,  woman's  living  beauty,  the  mountains, 
statues,  music,  to  love  all  rigid  and  flowing  things,  memory- 
haunted  rocks,  palaces,  lonely  rivers,  the  forests'  pillared 
shade — "these  to  me  are  God,"  Rentzdorf  at  that  time  as- 
serted: "I  know  no  other.  Yes;  I  see  God  most  just  there 
where  most  you  deny  God. " 

In  Vienna,  its  men  and  women,  Rentzdorf  found  oppor- 
tunities in  abundance  of  testing  one  article  of  his  creed — to 
experience  all.  Europe  at  that  period  contained  no  society 
in  which  the  life-desire  could  so  easily  or  so  completely  be 
realized — beautiful,  idle,  or  brilliant  women,  the  froth  and 
lees  of  every  court  and  capital  in  Europe,  politicians,  diplo- 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  171 

matists,  men  of  science,  and  men  of  fashion,  poets,  painters, 
sculptors,  musicians. 

A  miniature  at  this  period  portrays  Rentzdorf  as  tall, 
slender,  dark-haired,  dark-eyed;  his  features  already  force 
the  beholder  to  return  to  them,  speculative.  His  own  social 
rank,  his  youth,  the  audacities  of  his  wit,  the  publication  of 
his  first  poems,  the  part  he  took  in  the  campaign  of  Marengo, 
opened  every  door. 

A  woman's  passion  shattered  the  torpor  invading  him, 
and  tore  him  from  his  self-destroying  dream  of  pleasure. 

At  Mohacz,  whilst  still  a  pupil  in  the  seminary,  he  had 
met  and  in  secret  loved  Irene  Apponyi,  who  was  four  years 
older  than  himself  and  the  wife  of  a  neighbouring  landowner, 
a  Magyar  noble.  Indolent,  sensuous,  and  self-indulgent, 
she  had  inflamed  the  boy's  passions  and  riveted  his  infatua- 
tion; to  her  he  wrote  every  intimate  thought  and  for  her  he 
composed  verses,  imaginary  scenes,  dialogues,  sketches  of 
dramas.  But  at  the  end  of  two  months  the  inexorable  day 
of  the  return  to  Gratz  had  come ;  yet  he  had  never  forgotten 
that  first  terrible  joy,  nor  was  it,  apparently,  forgotten  by 
her.  Nevertheless,  through  the  appointment  of  her  hus- 
band to  the  Dresden  Court,  for  five  years  he  had  not  once 
seen  her  again.  Now,  in  the  winter  of  1800-1801,  she 
suddenly  confronted  him  in  the  ripe  splendour  of  woman- 
hood, a  leader  of  one  of  the  most  reckless  coteries  of  Vienna. 
She  was  a  lady  of  many  adventures;  but  she  spoke  in  regret 
and  tenderness  of  "other  days,"  describing  in  this  veiled 
way  their  first  tempestuous  meetings;  and,  by  some  devil's 
art,  she  managed  to  adjust  this  new  or  this  old  "friend- 
ship." 

The  caprice  of  the  woman  of  fashion  was  to  the  young 
poet  an  exalted  and  exalting  passion.  At  first  she  was 
amused  by  his  fervour  and  his  sincerity;  and  when  his  dar- 
ing made  him  dangerous,  she  affected  anger  and  refused  him 
her  house.  Misery  and  a  vast  fear  brought  him  to  the 


172  Schonbrunn 

verge  of  madness.  She  relented ;  but  when  she  attempted  to 
"explain  things"  and  regulate  their  future,  it  was  in  words 
that  to  him,  in  his  ignorance,  seemed  purposely  chosen  to 
torture  or  destroy  him.  Irene's  voice  was  still  to  him  a  song; 
but  as  she  spoke  that  night  it  was  as  though  his  skull  had 
been  opened  and  molten  lead  were  drop  by  drop  let  fall 
upon  his  brain. 

"Dearest,  dearest  boy,  I  am  seven  and  twenty.  Why 
should  it  matter  so  much  to  you  that  my  lips  have  been 
kissed  by  others?  Or  that  others  before  you,  as  you  ex- 
press it,  should  have  been  pressed  to  my  breast?  See! 
Is  it  not  enough  that  you  now  kiss  those  lips  and  that  I 
press  you  to  this  breast,  that  you  call  leprous  and  tainted  ? 
Is  this  leprosy,  or  this?  Dear  Heinrich,  Werther  is  very 
fine  as  a  story;  but  in  real  life,  he  finds  another  Charlotte 
or  puts  up  with  Albert.  And  why  do  you  object  to  Lothar? 
He  is  my  oldest  friend.  Be  reasonable  or  I  will  go  away 
again ;  for  I  cannot  yet  see  how  I  could  have  acted  otherwise 
than  I  have  acted.  And  certainly  I  cannot  see  that  I  am 
doing  anything  wrong. " 

Irene  Apponyi's  lesson,  though  in  the  end  it  struck  home, 
and  nearly  killed  the  neophyte,  her  lover  and  her  pupil 
in  life-experience.  In  the  frightful  desolation  that  rushed 
down  upon  his  spirit  Rentzdorf  had  perhaps  the  first  per- 
ception of  the  tremendous  if  sombre  vision  which  afterwards 
dominated  his  art  and  all  his  thought — the  vision  of  this 
universe  as  an  eternal  illusion  born  of  God's  eternal  suffering, 
God's  eternal  strife  to  end  that  anguish  and,  beyond  that 
illusion,  to  find  reality  and  deliverance. 

But  three  weeks  later,  when  he  woke  from  the  fever  and 
through  the  mists  of  delirium  saw  this  same  Circe,  disguised 
as  a  boy-student,  seated  by  his  bed,  watching  him  with 
haggard,  grief-tormented  eyes,  he  had  to  confront  yet 
another  life-experience,  and  from  her  frenzied  embraces 
and  tears  school  himself  to  a  yet  steadier  gaze  into  the 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  173 

riddling  perplexities  of  a  woman's  heart,  and  the  modern 
temperament. 

Had  her  cynicism  destroyed  itself  or  was  it  from  the  out- 
set a  feigning?  Or  had  his  passion  at  last  kindled  her  pas- 
sion? Certainly  she  who  but  a  month  ago  had  shut  her 
doors  on  him  because  of  a  social  indiscretion,  would  not 
have  run  this  risk  for  a  caprice,  however  flattering  to  her 
vanity. 

"A  madman's  dream,  this  universe.  This  life  is  all,  yet 
this  life  is  nothing, "  he  told  himself  during  his  slow  conval- 
escence; "but  it  is,  it  is  Irene  Apponyi's  mouth.  There 
is  no  meaning  anywhere;  love  is  a  lie;  woman's  constancy 
not  only  a  dream  but  a  bad  dream.  Truth  is  meaningless 
as  God.  Let  us  act  that  faith,  live  that  creed. " 

A  fearful  liaison  then  began,  born  amid  blood-lust  and 
soul-despair,  half-wondering,  mutual  desires  and  mutual 
contempt.  It  was  a  chaos,  but  a  chaos  above  which  the 
lightnings  of  their  unforgettable  first  raptures  flashed  and 
glimmered.  They  passed  hours  in  the  same  society,  in  a 
noisy  or  frantic  gaiety  that  was  not  even  pleasure;  that  at 
its  best  was  oblivion,  at  its  worst,  the  brutalization  of  every 
ennobling  sentiment.  Alone  together  afterwards,  they 
tortured  each  other,  now  by  venomous  allusions  to  their 
mutual  infidelities,  now  by  studiedly  maladroit  confessions 
or  incriminating  silences.  Their  assignations  became  a  hell 
to  which  each  came  resolute  to  torture  the  other;  yet  they 
met  and  met ;  for,  riveted  together  by  some  mysterious  bond, 
those  hours  were  the  days'  crown,  those  miseries  the  only 
sanctitudes  that  this  earth  reserved  for  either. 

"Life-hate?"  Rentzdorf  once  reflected  in  a  moment  of 
sinister  insight.  "Has  that  become  life's  goal  to  me?  And 
therefore -hatred  of  her,  who  is  still  to  me  life's  fairest,  most 
consecrate  expression.  I  wonder.  I  wonder." 

All  his  ancient  enthusiasms,  all  his  mystic  hopes  and  ques- 
tionings, now  became  the  target  of  his  own  or  his  mistress's 


174  Schonbrunn 

derision.  They  laughed  together  in  detestable  intimacy  at 
his  first  letters.  There  was  no  God;  or  if  there  had  ever 
been  a  God,  He  had  long  since  destroyed  Himself  in  self- 
horror  at  the  hideous  abortion,  this  universe — this  world  in 
which  not  one  heart's  desire  is  or  can  be  fulfilled,  and  not 
one  soul's  question  answered. 

in 

In  this  conflict  of  perversity  and  cynicism  it  was  the 
woman  who  was  vanquished. 

Outwardly,  she  did  not  change  her  conduct.  She  even 
exaggerated  her  own  crimes;  but  when  she  spoke  of  her 
lovers  or  her  admirers  it  was  with  icy  lips,  and  a  fearful 
intentness  came  into  her  face  when  she  cross-questioned  him 
upon  the  way  in  which  he  had  passed  the  hours  or  the  days 
of  her  enforced  absences  from  Vienna. 

"What  do  I  want?"  she  had  whispered  with  set  teeth 
after  a  meeting  of  unusually  fierce  recrimination,  in  which 
the  mask  of  cynicism  was  flung  off  entirely.  "What  every 
woman  wants  and  never  obtains;  what  every  woman  seeks 
and  never  finds. " 

She  now  began  at  each  meeting  to  lead  their  conversa- 
tion back  to  Mohacz,  to  the  scenery  of  their  early  friend- 
ship, the  lake,  the  woods,  to  his  letters,  and  their  long 
strange  talks. 

"I  was  at  least  your  first  love.  In  your  memory  I  shall 
have  that  place,  Heinrich.  Nothing  can  take  that  from 
me." 

Her  tears  seemed  to  Rentzdorf  the  tears  of  a  morbid  or 
spurious  sentiment,  yet  this  became  her  repeated  cry.  And 
furious  that  she  should  have  this  consolation,  or  that  even 
in  this  detail  she  should  be  false  to  their  creed,  he  deter- 
mined to  deny  even  his  own  past. 

"Are  you  so  sure?"  he  answered  the  next  time  she  re- 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  175 

peated  the  assertion.  "Every  woman  thinks  she  is  a  boy's 
first  love.  Perhaps.  Who  can  ever  tell?" 

Stupefied,  she  raised  her  head  and  looked  at  him;  and 
ruthless  and  shameless,  he  had  forged  details. 

"Perhaps?  You  say  'perhaps'?"  she  had  breathed  like 
a  person  stunned.  "Helena  Nicholsevna?  O  my  God — I 
do  not  wish  it  to  have  been  her.  Tell  me;  you  must  be 
lying?" 

And  a  horrible  terror  had  come  into  her  wide-open  eyes, 
making  her  face  rigid  and  grey  like  a  face  carved  in  grey 
stone. 

Half  an  hour  later,  as  she  rose  to  return  home,  "Well," 
she  had  said,  drawing  on  her  gloves,  "I  owe  to  you  to-night 
the  longest,  steadiest  stare  into  the  abyss  I  have  ever  had. 
It  is  health-giving  as  strong  pure  air." 

Disturbed  by  her  words  as  by  her  manner,  disturbed 
above  all  by  the  vileness  of  his  own  part  in  this  hideous 
incident,  Rentzdorf  that  night  had  written  to  her,  recanting 
his  words ;  but  instantly  determining  to  see  her  in  the  morn- 
ing, he  had  burnt  the  letter.  Despite  the  resolution,  he 
was  unable  to  sleep.  Fear,  the  unmistakable  tragic  fear, 
was  upon  him. 

"But  what  fear?  And  for  whom?  Not  for  her.  What 
greater  gift  could  I,  even  by  a  lie,  have  given  her  than  just 
that  same  steady  stare  into  the  abyss?  Reality  is  there." 

Yet  the  meanings  of  the  great  tragedies  were  plain,  the 
black  root  in  things  from  which  these  night-pieces  blossom, 
and  the  tragedies  actually  lived  by  men  and  women  seemed, 
in  his  half-dream,  strangely  near  to  him. 

Next  day,  going  to  her  early,  he  found  her  half-dressed 
lying  on  a  sofa  with  her  hair  down.  With  a  wild  cry  she 
had  sprung  to  her  feet  and,  clinging  to  him,  had  confessed 
her  act.  Horror-struck,  he  had  struggled  from  her  clasp. 
For  the  woman  whose  kisses  martyred  his  lips  was  a  dying 
woman.  Reckless  of  everything  save  her  suffering,  he 


176  Schonbrunn 

called  her  maid;  a  physician  was  summoned;  the  poison 
appeared  to  be  counteracted;  but  five  weeks  later  Irene 
Apponyi  was  dead. 

Rentzdorf  had  to  fight  two  duels,  first  with  her  husband, 
then  with  a  lover. 

Severely  wounded  in  the  latter,  Rentzdorf  had,  for  the 
last  week  of  his  mistress's  life  lain  at  the  point  of  death 
himself,  and  Irene's  dying  moments  were  soothed  by  a 
recrudescence  of  her  childhood's  religion  and  by  the  belief 
that  her  lover  would  not  survive  her. 

Rentzdorf  on  his  recovery  had  left  Vienna,  and  passed 
the  winter  in  Italy;  then,  from  Venice,  he  had  abruptly 
started  for  Greece,  making  the  voyage  to  the  Piraeus  on  a 
trader's  sloop. 

IV 

Four  and  a  half  years  went  by. 

In  Rentzdorf 's  life  the  history  of  those  years  is  the  history 
of  the  process  by  which  he  attained  that  newer  vision  of  God 
and  of  the  universe  which  became  for  him  Time's  last  word 
upon  man's  destiny  and  upon  Being's  drama  and  Being's 
doom. 

Hitherto  Rentzdorf  had  been  merely  abreast  of  the  far- 
thest-forward ranging  thought  of  his  time.  Even  in  the 
rebellious  anarchic  despair  of  the  Irene  Apponyi  period  he 
had  co-equals  in  men  like  Zacharias  Werner  and  Friedrich 
Schlegel.  Now,  in  the  daring  as  well  as  in  the  steadiness  of 
his  thought,  he  outstrips  all  his  contemporaries.  His  life 
becomes  the  voyage  of  a  soul  towards  God,  or,  as  he  after- 
wards described  it,  the  voyage  of  God  in  his  soul  towards 
the  final  consciousness  of  God's  destiny  and  God's  doom. 

Rentzdorf  passed  those  years  partly  in  travel,  partly  in 
prolonged  visits  to  Mohacz.  "In  art,  in  art  and  its  sereni- 
ties, "  he  told  himself  as  he  slowly  recovered  from  the  re- 
morse and  fever  into  which  Irene  Apponyi's  suicide  had 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  177 

plunged  him,  "there  is  the  peace  imperishable;  there  is  the 
medicine  my  spirit  needs." 

And  he  gave  himself  to  the  sedulous  study  of  poetry  and 
the  perfecting  of  his  craft. 

But  the  quiet  of  the  soul  which  this  task  brought  was 
premature.  The  pitiless  insight  of  the  mystic  urged  him 
beyond  this  illusion  as  it  had  urged  him  beyond  Girondinism 
and  the  illusions  of  '93,  and  Kant's  religiose  philosophy. 
If  science  left  answerless  every  question  worth  answering ; 
if  knowledge  of  the  past  was  pedantry;  if  thought  was 
futile  and  passion  a  disease,  was  it  not  folly  to  torment  his 
mind  in  a  search  for  the  perfect  verse  or  the  perfect  phrase 
into  which  to  press  the  essence  of  that  science,  that  know- 
ledge, that  passion,  or  that  thought? 

And  once  more  the  only  life-choice  was  between  a  self- 
condemned  feverous  striving  and  the  dull  inactivity  of 
despair. 

"You  ask  too  much  of  life,"  his  uncle  said  to  him.  "  No 
one  has  ever  solved  the  Sphinx's  riddle  and  no  one  ever  will. 
Read  the  Stoics  and  Montaigne.  Nature  too  teaches  us 
calm.  The  sea  still  lifts  her  waves,  the  mountains  their 
immovable  peaks,  and  the  green  returns  to  the  woods." 

But  to  Rentzdorf  this  "calm"  would  have  meant  treason 
against  himself,  and  the  surrender  of  the  only  purpose 
that  made  time  endurable.  Forbidden  too  the  return  to 
the  blind  tumult  of  Viennese  society.  Already  with  Irene 
Apponyi  he  had  outlived  all  that.  With  her  he  had  scaled 
the  topmost  summits  of  Rebellion,  pursuing  passion  with 
her  into  its  most  sacred  and  secret  recesses,  living  day  by 
day  the  accusations  and  the  denials  which  others  feigned. 

"But  our  rebellion,"  he  now  said,  urged  by  sympathy  or 
by  some  spirit  of  half -extinguished  remorse,  "that  too  was 
God — O,  very  God  of  God !  And  for  me,  so  far  as  woman 
is  concerned,  truth  and  heroism  are  buried  in  her  grave. 
She  has  found  calm;  mine  is  the  anguish  still." 


178  Schonbrunn 

And  in  this  agonia  of  his  own  soul  he  turned,  revitalized, 
in  the  pursuit  of  life's  stronger  ihterpretings  and  the  newer 
vision,  the  God  that  is  to  be. 

The  memory  of  Irene's  life-despair  and  reckless  candour 
had  re-kindled  his  will  as  once  her  lips  had  the  power  to 
re-inflame  his  desires. 


It  was  the  winter  of  1803-4. 

Napoleon's  original  and  semi-mystic  phase  had  ended. 
The  prophet  to  whom  in  1800  all  men  looked  as  the  har- 
binger of  a  new  era  had  become  the  rival  of  Trajan,  the 
imitator  alternately  of  Constantine  and  of  Charlemagne. 

Rentzdorf  at  Mohacz,  in  the  long  winter  nights  of  that 
year,  had  with  a  fresh  and  tingling  zest  resorted  to  study 
and  to  books.  His  purpose  in  this  effort  had  become  better 
defined  and  more  precise.  The  religions  and  the  philoso- 
phies, he  argued,  were  indeed  vain.  The  passionless,  pith- 
less God  of  Kant  or  the  acrobatic  God  of  Hegel  were  as 
intolerable  as  the  tribal  God  of  Israel,  even  when  transfigured 
by  Isaiah  and  by  Jesus  into  the  God  of  all  the  earth.  Igno- 
rance had  receded  with  the  centuries.  Knowledge  had  come 
no  nearer.  In  the  end  the  failure  of  metaphysics  was  com- 
plete as  the  failure  of  religion.  But  was  despair  therefore 
inevitable?  By  a  resolute  gaze  into  those  boundless  spaces, 
now  flung  wide  to  man's  scrutiny,  and  by  an  equally  resolute 
study  of  the  aeons  of  a  dateless  past,  of  the  chronicles  of  the 
rocks,  and  the  annals  of  man,  and  by  a  fixed  meditation 
simple  and  sincere,  upon  the  spirit  itself  and  its  inward 
workings,  might  there  not  be  vouchsafed  him,  even  at  this 
late  hour,  some  truer,  profounder  vision  of  things? 

"Others  like  Kant  have  gone  to  Nature  and  the  past  in 
order  to  find  proofs  of  a  preconceived  God  and  a  predeter- 
mined moral  law.  They  brought  home  the  treasure  they 
took  with  them.  Compassless  I,  I  go  out  into  an  uncharted 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  179 

darkness,  a  sea  without  a  star;  I  know  not  even  if  God  is 
there  or  if  there  is  a  God.  I  strive  but  to  see  what  is  there 
— what  newer  vision  of  supernal  hope,  or  the  eclipse  of  all 
hope,  infernal  night,  and  the  coming  of  final  despair. " 

The  writings  of  D'Alembert  and  Laplace,  of  Cuvier  and 
of  Bichat,  stimulated  his  ardour.  Days  grew  to  weeks,  the 
weeks  to  months.  His  first  quiet  studiousness  became  a 
fury  of  enthusiasm  which,  without  food  and  without  sleep, 
hurried  his  spirit  from  volume  to  volume,  and  urged  his 
transported  mind  through  one  untracked  or  forbidden  arena 
of  thought  after  another. 

From  the  astronomer's  figures  and  the  anatomist's  lec- 
ture-room he  passed  to  man's  history.  Enriched  by  his 
survey  he  had  come  back  once  more  to  the  laboratory  and  to 
the  anatomist's  plates,  devoting  himself  to  each  study  in 
turn  with  a  specialist's  care  and  the  prophetic  fervour  of  a 
mystic  seeking  the  vision  of  God.  Man  was  identical  with 
Nature,  yet  greater  than  Nature — and  in  man's  soul,  there- 
fore, not  in  Nature,  were  the  clearest  hieroglyphics  of  God. 
Yet  in  nature  he  might  find  a  key  by  which  to  approach 
these  hieroglyphics.  There  was  his  first  maxim. 

But  where  are  those  hieroglyphics  most  accumulated  and 
most  concentrated? 

At  the  university  and  at  Gratz  he  had  worked  at  the  his- 
tory of  the  Middle  Ages,  Aquinas  and  Abelard  and  Dionysios 
were  not  less  familiar  than  Plato  and  Empedocles.  To  these 
he  now  added  the  religions  of  other  races  and  earlier  times — 
the  lost  faiths  of  Mithras  and  Isiris,  the  Vedas  and  the 
A  vesta,  recently  made  accessible  by  the  researches  of  An- 
quetil-Duperron  and  Schlegel.  He  re-traversed  in  imagina- 
tion the  leisured  spaces  of  Egypt  and  the  remoter  East 
visualizing  as  in  a  spectral  pageantry  the  kingdoms  and  half- 
fabulous  empires  that  shift  and  move  from  the  Oxus  to  the 
Tigris,  from  the  Tigris  eastward  to  the  Ganges  and  westward 
to  the  Ionian  Sea. 


i8o  Schonbrunn 

If  he  failed  now,  he  told  himself,  it  would  be  the  last 
failure.  Vanquished  in  this  final  elan  of  the  soul,  it  would 
be  forever. 

Months  passed.  The  midnight  within  him  and  around 
him  stood  black  and  silent  as  the  midnight  above  the  polar 
seas.  In  history  the  hideousness  of  man's  annals  alter- 
nately nauseated  or  appalled  him.  In  religion  the  puerility 
of  the  creeds  amazed  or  terrified  his  reason.  What  satirist 
from  another  planet  could  invent  so  savage  an  indictment 
against  the  human  race  as  the  records  of  any  single  reli- 
gion, Druidic,  Persian,  Hindu,  Christian,  afforded?  And  in 
philosophy  the  timidity  or  avarice  of  the  temporizers,  the 
professional  men  at  the  universities,  the  defeats  of  the 
brave,  the  martyrs  to  Truth,  added  to  the  gloomy  influence 
of  history  and  religion. 

Could  a  spirit  chained  to  such  a  planet,  portion  of  such  a 
race,  ever  hope  to  discover  a  truth  worth  knowing?  And 
the  God  of  that  history  and  this  fabric — who  is  He  that  sits 
on  high  and  watches  the  drama  in  this  blood-dripping  am- 
phitheatre of  a  world? 

The  last  horror  invaded  him.  It  rose  within  him  at  dawn 
and  by  night  it  closed  around  him,  resistless  as  a  flood  tide. 

"  It  is  not  my  own  disaster — not  my  own.  It  is  the  failure 
of  man.  It  is  the  failure  of  God.  ..." 

"If  God  is  against  me,"  cried  Mohammed  in  one  of  his 
blackest  depressions,  "I  will  appeal  to  the  djins. "  And  in 
a  similar  onset  of  discouragement  and  defiant  despair  we 
find  Rentzdorf  writing,  "My  journey  to  Damascus?  Each 
morning  that  journey  recommences.  For  Saul  of  Tarsus 
in  an  hour  the  conflict  was  ended.  He  accepted  another 
man's  vision  and  was  at  peace.  But  I  ?  God's  own  vision 
of  God's  end — that  I  seek,  that  only,  and  now  I  think  the 
God  within  me  is  blind.  From  His  eyes,  not  mine,  the 
scales  must  fall."  But  at  another  time  and  in  another 
mood  he  writes : 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  181 

"I  clamour  still  for  an  exterior  faith,  for  some  hope  to 
which  I  can  cling,  for  some  creed  in  which  I  can  believe. 
Fool!  What  hope  has  God  except  despair?  And  in  what 
credo  does  the  Most  High  believe?  Who  has  drawn  out 
into  articles  His  Confession?" 


VI 

Unannounced,  the  vision  at  length  broke  in  Rentzdorf's 
mind.  His  soul's  voyage  was  ended.  From  the  deepest 
depths,  the  all-denier  had  climbed  to  the  summit,  the  all- 
affirmer.  The  scales,  in  his  own  daring  metaphor,  fell 
from  God's  eyes,  and  the  universe  which  but  yesterday  was 
an  enginery  of  unpurposed  pain,  confused  as  a  madman's 
dream,  stood  out  in  ordered  beauty,  a  temple  lit  by  a  single 
all-illumining  thought. 

This  thought  which  informs  his  later  writings,  above  all 
his  Prometheus,  Rentzdorf  has  expressed  in  various  aspects, 
ethical  and  metaphysical;  but  their  unifying  conception 
is  that  of  an  all-suffering,  all-striving  God — der  leidende, 
strebende  Gott.  Anguish — that  is  the  first  trait  in  the  new 
portraiture  of  the  world-soul.  God  is  no  longer  the  dreary 
Omnipotent  of  the  creeds.  In  a  pain-racked  universe  a 
struggling  pain-racked  Deity  seeks  by  incessant  strife  and 
by  creations  of  ever-ascending  beauty  and  power  to  deliver 
Himself  and  nature  from  the  suffering  which  is  Being's 
essence,  to  attain  the  quiet  which  is  Being's  grave. 

"  Bist  du  uberwinden  ?  "  says  a  character  in  one  of  Rentz- 
dorf's latest  books.  "Art  thou  oppressed  by  the  tempests 
of  pain  which  in  never-ending  circles  rave  round  this  planet? 
God's  is  that  suffering.  Is  thy  spirit  made  frantic  by  the 
cries  of  madness-driven  hunger  and  rage  which  shrill  through 
the  undated  eras  from  the  deeps  of  vanished  forests  and  the 
caverns  of  undiscovered  seas?  God's  is  that  hunger,  and 
that  rage  is  God's.  And  yonder,  out  yonder  in  the  midnight, 


1 82  Schonbrunn 

in  those  star-galaxies  which  hang  like  the  frost-jewelled 
gossamer  of  the  skies,  in  those  rushing  suns  and  their  black 
and  retinued  orbs,  dost  thou  surmise  the  theatres  of  the 
same  fury  and  the  same  pain?  Yea,  and  in  Time's  abyss, 
where  world  on  world  lies  sepulchred,  and,  in  the  havoc  of 
the  aeons,  sunk  systems  moulder  beside  their  extinguished 
suns,  doth  thy  spirit,  darkly  conjecturing,  brood  over  the 
embryons  and  first-beginnings  of  universes  of  anguish  and 
dark  eternities  of  woe?  All  is  God's.  The  fury  and  the 
strife  are  His:  and  His  that  inextinguishable  anguish  and 
the  woe." 

Elsewhere  Rentzdorf  faces  and  answers  the  question  of 
the  Vedas — "What  moved  Prajapati,  the  High  God,  out 
of  the  dark  sleep  of  nothingness  to  create  the  worlds?" 
"Suffering  moved  Him,  suffering  which  is  Being's  essence, 
andjthe  desire  to  end  that  suffering  and,  with  it,  Being  itself. 
For  this  is  the  tragic  character  of  Being  and  of  Being's  God, 
that  only  by  destruction  can  He  create  and  only  by  creation 
attain  His  own  and  Being's  goal — dark  Annihilation's 
ecstasy." 

But  if  the  world  is  moulded  in  affliction,  if  a  suffering  God 
to  assuage  His  suffering  created  the  universe,  whence  arises 
its  beauty,  its  structured  grandeur,  and  the  multitudinous 
magnificence  of  its  unending  pageantry? 

The  Beauty  of  the  universe,  Rentzdorf  answers,  springs 
from  the  mirage  which  arises  within  God's  spirit  when,  in 
the  agonia  of  His  unending  strife,  He  visions  the  attainment 
of  His  goal — the  beginning  beyond  the  end.  For  as  God 
approaches  nearer  to  His  deliverance  from  Being,  so  He 
shapes  the  worlds  in  higher  beauty  ever  nearer  to  the  pat- 
tern of  that  deliverance.  Before  great  Beauty  we  long  to 
die,  because  our  soul  is  then  caught  up  into  God's  and  dis- 
cerns the  Reality,  His  and  Nature's  end. 

For  a  period  Rentzdorf  was  harassed  by  doubts.  "Is 
this  thing  of  God, "  he  asked,  "or  is  it  not  of  God?" 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  183 

Gradually  doubt  vanished. 

Time  had  recovered  its  majesty.  Earth  was  reinvested 
in  mystery.  Man's  life  recovered  its  argument;  art  its 
wonder. 

The  religions  of  the  past — Osiris,  Jahve,  the  Buddha,  and 
the  religion  of  Calvary,  the  Stoic's  creed,  Plotinus,  the 
Tabriz  mystic's  resuscitation  of  Islam — these  and  other 
faiths  are  rejected  by  reason  even  as  religions  for  this  earth, 
and  what  imagination,  Rentzdorf  asks,  can  tolerate  even 
the  greatest  of  them  as  the  religion,  not  only  of  this  earth, 
but  of  the  spheres  that  out  yonder  wander  undetected 
around  other  suns?  Yet  in  each  and  all  of  these  faiths  he 
discovered  anticipations,  strange  foreshado wings,  sudden 
far-borne  illuminings  of  his  own  vision,  fragments  as  of  a 
scattered  dream-tragedy. 

"And  that  faith  or  that  vision?  In  this,  in  this,  "  he  said 
with  an  awed  and  shuddering  heart,  "in  this  has  there  not 
at  last  arisen,  after  the  unreckonable  seons,  populous  with 
power  and  beauty,  has  there  not  at  last  arisen  a  religion 
under  whose  sombre,  dread,  yet  all-alluring  dominion  the 
mind  can  imagine  world  on  world  finding  peace? "  Already 
on  this  earth  dim  annunciations  from  the  past  were  borne  to 
him,  dim  yet  certain  harbingers  from  every  region;  already 
on  this  earth  race  after  race  as  it  attained  its  zenith  was  for 
one  instant,  if  only  in  dying,  vouchsafed  the  tragic  insight, 
the  power  to  arraign.  Assyria,  Hellas,  Rome,  India,  the 
Middle  Age,  each  in  turn  had  hovered  on  the  verge  of  the 
Tragic  Vision. 

"Time's  last  word?"  he  muttered.  "Indeed,  in  very 
deed,  is  this  God's  inmost  thought  in  man's  soul  enun- 
ciated?" 

And  again,  in  a  second  all-transcending  hour,  the  vision 
came  to  him.  It  was  a  July  midnight.  Thunder  moaned 
in  the  distance.  In  the  woods  round  Mohacz  the  leaves 
above  the  stems,  pillars  of  ebon  gloom,  shivered  with  the 


184  Schonbrunn 

presentiment  of  the  coming  storm.  Harassed  and  with 
working  thought,  he  had  quitted  the  oppressive  rooms  of 
the  chateau  for  the  cool  fragrance  of  the  forest.  Despair 
was  on  him  again,  when  suddenly,  as  if  the  physical  storm 
had  burst,  there  was  all  about  him  and  within  him  a  supernal 
light.  And  again  he  spoke  the  supreme  affirmation.  God 
of  very  God,  in  that  night  silence  and  storm  anguished  in 
his  anguish,  strove  in  his  striving,  was  victorious  in  his 
victory.  Beyond  the  thunderous  canopy  he  heard  the  fire- 
torrent  of  the  suns  roar  through  the  spaces.  Then  within 
his  spirit  there  came  a  mighty  hush.  Like  a  cloud  anchored 
at  evening  he  saw  the  total  universe  hang  in  iridescent 
mystery. 

Then  thought  snapped.     Vision  was  all. 

A  frightful  exultancy  and  depression  marked  the  follow- 
ing days.  The  artist  in  him  was  wrestling  with  the  thinker. 
How  was  his  art  to  compass  any  expression  of  his  faith? 
A  singular  fear  of  death  assailed  him;  and,  with  it,  the  fear 
of  leaving  his  vision  unrealized  and  unstated. 

"  Fear?  What  is  it  that  I  fear? "  he  said,  rising  in  sudden 
illumination  above  this  mood.  "If  not  by  me  then  by 
another  this  shall  be  uttered.  The  God  that  is  to  be — how 
shall  He  remain  hid?  If  not  to  me  then  to  another  He 
would  have  revealed  Himself.  Fear?  Why  should  I  fear? 
There  is  one  thing  only  a  man  should  fear — lest  God  should 
fail!" 

Yet  as  the  days  passed  and  quiet  replaced  exaltation  and 
reason  the  fever  of  the  mind,  as  piece  by  piece  in  templed 
wonder  the  system  of  dynamic  pantheism  rose  before  his 
imagination,  it  was  the  truth,  the  sincerity,  not  the  excel- 
lence or  the  inspiration  of  his  vision  which  concerned  Rentz- 
dorf ,  examining  it,  testing  it  in  every  fashion,  applying  it  to 
ethics,  applying  it  to  logic,  to  metaphysic,  to  psychology. 
No  man  could  have  been  more  impatient  of  that  braggartism 
and  self-laudation  which,  in  modern  times,  disfigure  the 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  185 

writings  of  Nietzsche  as  well  as  the  histrionic  egoisms  of 
Wagner.  Rentzdorf  had  still  the  good  breeding  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

From  a  thousand  fluctuant  schemes  for  giving  an  art- 
form  to  his  central  thought  he  at  last  concentrated  his 
powers  on  one.  This  was  the  Prometheus  myth.  Re- 
jecting as  pedantic  and  obsolete  the  form  of  a  trilogy,  yet 
compelled  by  the  vastness  of  the  subject,  the  personages 
and  the  material,  to  paint  on  a  wide  canvas,  Rentzdorf 
divided  the  drama  in  two  parts — Prometheus  the  Fire- 
bringer  and  Prometheus  the  Death-bringer.  Into  the  former, 
working  at  white  heat,  he  wove,  in  inspiration  upon  inspira- 
tion, a  picture  of  earth  and  man's  life  as  it  presented  itself 
to  the  highest-erected  minds  in  man's  past  and  in  his  own 
era — a  word-picture  of  Time  and  God,  as  in  the  days  of  his 
despair  and  soul-wrestle  Time  and  God  had  appeared  to 
himself.  In  the  Second  Part,  Prometheus  the  Death-bringer, 
distributed  into  four  colossal  Acts,  he  depicted  in  terrible 
scene  on  scene  the  conflict  of  earth's  former  gods  against  the 
new  vision  of  God.  There,  in  the  breast  of  Prometheus,  the 
God  that  had  been  was  at  war  with  the  God  that  is  to  be. 
The  interest  of  the  Second  Part  centred  in  the  transformation 
of  Prometheus  from  the  Life-bringer  into  the  Death-bringer, 
from  the  Titan  or  demi-god — who,  in  antagonism  to  the 
Zeus-God,  rapt  in  cold  omnipotence,  wishes  to  re-clothe 
earth  in  joy  and  peace — into  the  seer  or  visionary  hero  who 
looks  beyond  this  earth  and  beyond  the  universe  of  Being 
to  a  state  higher  than  Being  and  the  God  of  Being. 

VII 

A  modern  critic,  John  Halford,  has  pointed  out  that 
Rentzdorf's  Prometheus  the  Titan  might  be  described  as  a 
world-drama  having  for  its  central  subject  "The  Tragedy 
of  God. "  And  it  is  not  only  the  boldest  and  most  original 


1 86  Schonbrunn 

of  Rentzdorf 's  own  works,  but,  as  Halford  in  the  same  essay 
affirms,  it  is  perhaps  the  profoundest  work  of  that  era;  for 
Werner  in  his  speculative  dramas  ended  in  mere  Romanism, 
and  Goethe,  in  the  Second  Faust,  imparts  to  us  no  new 
vision,  but  simply  blends  into  a  wayward  unity  the  ideals 
of  Dante  and  the  ideals  of  a  later  utilitarian  age.  Frederick 
the  Great's  activities  in  his  last  years  anticipate  the  close 
of  the  Second  Faust.  But  in  Rentzdorf 's  drama  a  new  por- 
traiture of  God  and  of  the  universe  is  at  least  essayed. 
Nevertheless,  the  Prometheus  of  Rentzdorf  has,  as  Halford 
acknowledges,  the  defects,  if  it  has  also  the  merits,  of 
/Eschylean  tragedy.  Its  men  and  women  are  shifting 
masks  of  God;  the  motives  or  passions  which  impel  or 
dominate  them  are  flashes  of  the  world-soul's  will. 

All  in  the  drama  is  on  a  huge  scale  and  full  of  shadowy 
magnificence — the  vocabulary,  the  style,  the  verse-forms, 
the  characters,  the  scenery.  In  this  respect  it  suggests  in 
literature  only  the  Oresteia  or  Lear;  in  art,  the  Medici  chapel 
or  the  greater  symphonies  of  Beethoven — Rentzdorf's  own 
friend  and  in  some  respects  his  follower. 

The  opening  scene  of  Part  I  presents  an  immense  plain 
covered  with  the  havoc  of  war — the  ruins  of  cities  and 
villages,  the  smoking  debris  of  palaces  and  temples.  Night 
is  falling.  In  the  distance  the  trumpets  of  a  conquering 
host  ring  out  joyously  in  pursuit  of  a  vanquished  and  re- 
treating foe.  Gradually  they  die  away  into  the  twilight. 
Night  deepens  and  total  silence  possesses  the  scene.  In  the 
foreground  stands  a  half-demolished  altar  and  near  it  a 
pillar  blackened  by  fire.  Beside  this  pillar  the  young  war- 
rior-poet Kallias,  wrapped  in  a  soldier's  mantle,  looks  down 
on  the  dead  still  sweet  face  of  a  boy  of  fifteen — his  brother. 
Like  himself  he  had  risen  in  revolt  against  Hybristides,  the 
tyrant  whose  distant  trumpets  a  minute  ago  broke  the 
twilight  silences.  The  mad  blind  lust  for  revenge  rages  in 
Kallias;  but  all  is  shadowed  by  the  thought — On  whom  is 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  187 

he  to  avenge  the  fallen  boy?  "Man's  misery  is  complete; 
earth  cries  to  earth  in  anguish.  And  the  Zeus-God,  the 
creator  and  affiictor,  where  in  His  throne?  On  the  tyrant? 
Yesterday  by  this  temple  on  the  forest  edge  I  saw  the  hawk's 
beak  rise  red  from  the  womb  of  a  hare  with  young ;  the  hare 
and  its  brood  have  peace.  The  hawk's  torment  when  in 
life  endures.  Let  Hybristides  live!" 

In  Kallias  and  in  his  courage  and  in  his  dream-purposes 
Rentzdorf  had  wrought  a  study  of  the  youthful  Bonaparte, 
touched  by  Hamlet,  dulled  and  unnerved  in  every  act  by  his 
life-hate  and  life- weariness.  But  Prometheus  enters  and 
all  is  resolution,  all  is  burning  energy.  Prometheus  is  not 
man's  foe;  he  is  not  even  the  foe  of  Hybristides ;  he  is  the 
enemy  of  God,  the  deathless  antagonist  of  the  Zeus-Creator 
who,  secure  of  his  own  eternity  and  self-centred  in  his 
changeless  omnipotence,  sees  world  on  world  roll  on  in 
agony  from  the  first  embryonic  throb  of  being  and  of  pain 
to  the  last  protesting  cry  of  blind  accusing  madness-driven 
decay.  To  destroy  the  Zeus-God,  to  re-create  on  a  new 
plan  earth  and  all  the  worlds,  to  glut  Being's  rage  with 
everlasting  continuous  power  and  light  and  joy — this  is 
Prometheus's  enterprise,  and  in  the  first  abrupt  trochaics  of 
his  challenge  the  spectators,  Magyar  and  Austrian  alike, 
easily  discerned  the  defiant  ardour  which,  in  their  own  era, 
had  thrilled  the  great  spirits  of  the  Revolution — Mirabeau, 
Danton,  Vergniaud,  and  the  Girondins.  Earth's  last  illu- 
sion was  not  withered. 

This  First  Part  of  the  drama  ends  in  titantic  gloom. 
Freedom's  hosts  are  everywhere  vanquished;  Kallias  and 
Prometheus,  the  mortal  and  immortal  antagonists  of  the 
Zeus-God,  are  fallen.  Kallias  and  his  companions-in-arms 
have  been  massacred  by  the  mob,  hounded  on  by  the  priests; 
Prometheus,  in  rage  and  mad  surprise,  has  sunk,  death- 
defiant  and  God-defiant,  under  the  earthquake  and  the 
thunderbolt ;  and  on  this  earth  and  in  all  the  spaces  of  the 


i88  Schonbrunn 

worlds  it  is  Night,  Night  eternal,  and  the  lamentings  of 
the  dying,  the  moans  or  accusing  grief  of  the  living,  rise 
round  the  funeral  pyres  of  the  dead. 

The  midnight  and  the  despair  are  not  the  midnight  and 
the  despair  of  the  defeated  host  only  in  tragic  overthrow; 
but  the  midnight  and  despair  of  Time  itself  and  the  worlds. 

This  prodigious  gloom,  as  of  worlds  in  eclipse,  still  pos- 
sesses the  stage  when  the  spectators  reassemble  for  the 
Second  Part.  But  the  tortured  cries  of  the  dying,  the  loud 
or  muttered  grief  and  rage  round  the  pyres  of  the  dead 
have  ceased.  Yet  a  voice  is  heard,  low,  solitary,  but  in- 
finitely majestic,  infinitely  sorrowful ;  and  gradually,  as  the 
eyes  become  accustomed  to  the  night,  a  vastness  within  the 
vastness  is  discerned,  a  Presence,  a  shape  colossal  yet  un- 
certain in  its  outlines,  aweing  the  heart  in  proportion  as  it 
allures  it  by  a  sense  of  unsolved  and  insoluble  mysterious- 
ness.  It  is  the  Zeus-God.  It  is  the  Zeus-God,  not  in 
insulting  victory,  not  the  possessor  of  a  frigid  unending 
omnipotence;  but  speaking  like  a  god  in  anguish,  suffering 
yet  unconquered,  agonizing  yet  unbending  from  his  path. 

Prometheus,  long  since  buried  under  the  avalanche,  is  now 
storming  his  way  back  to  the  upper  air.  A  new  war  and 
new  suffering  are  near.  And  not  in  resentment  but  in 
strange  terrible  sympathy,  held  by  the  awful  gloom,  the 
spectators  listen  to  the  Zeus-God's  apologia  and  lament. 

"What  is  thy  suffering  beside  my  suffering,  and  the  an- 
guish of  a  million  million  worlds  beside  mine?  For  I  am 
the  inventor  of  Death,  and  the  discoverer  of  Life  am  I. 
Yea,  to  deliver  these  my  universes  from  their  suffering  and 
my  soul  from  its  anguish  I  created  and  I  create.  In  me  is 
fulfilled  the  tragic  purpose  of  the  worlds ;  the  Doom's  begin- 
nings and  the  Doom's  ending.  The  malediction  of  my 
worlds  is  heavy  upon  Me;  yet  the  voice  wherewith  they  curse 
Me  is  my  voice.  For  I  am  the  sin  of  my  worlds,  and  their 
redemption  am  I .... 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  189 

"And  for  him  who  yonder  has  sunk  overwhelmed,  yea, 
for  Prometheus,  my  best-loved,  rebel  of  my  rebel-thought, 
doom  of  my  tragic  doom,  what  is  your  compassion  beside 
my  compassion  or  your  wrath  beside  my  wrath?  But  he 
shall  rise  again.  Made  strong  by  my  thought,  and  by  the 
secrets  of  the  grave  instructed,  he  shall  arise.  Even  now  he 
is  here!" 

Lightnings  at  the  word  split  the  shroud  of  universal 
gloom,  lightnings  that  coalesce  into  a  light,  into  a  wide- 
streaming,  sunny,  and  beneficent  radiance;  and  steeped  in 
immortal  youth,  in  wonder  and  immortal  felicity,  this  earth 
is  seen,  this  earth  is  seen  outstretched,  clothed  in  all  her 
zones  in  the  splendour  and  everlasting  tranquil  joy  of  Pro- 
metheus's  ideal  and  Prometheus's  dream. 

Vanquished,  the  Titan  has  accomplished  that  which, 
a  victor,  he  would  never  have  accomplished.  But  the  curse 
of  transiency  still  oppresses.  To  remove  this  curse  Pro- 
metheus prepares  himself  for  this  last  war — the  war  which 
is  to  give  eternity  and  reality  to  this  fair  and  deceitful 
semblance  of  a  vision. 

But  there  is  a  change  in  Prometheus.  He  speaks  the  old 
challenges,  the  old  watchwords;  but  his  strange,  troubling 
yet  fixed  and  most  haunting  cadences  announce  some  darker 
thought  or  unresolved  doubt,  numbing  his  purpose.  His 
voice,  the  spectators  discern  with  a  shudder,  is  nearer  to  the 
voice  of  the  Zeus-God,  his  dread  adversary. 

"It  is  impossible,"  says  Axel  Petersen  in  his  critique  of 
the  play  which  appeared  two  days  later  in  the  Mercure  de 
Vienne,  "to  narrate  the  suspense,  the  alternations  of  sur- 
prise and  questioning  wonder  and  admiration  which  this 
Second  Part  of  the  drama  created  in  us.  Gradually  we  un- 
ravel Prometheus's  secret;  we  understand  his  hesitation. 
He  has  discovered  that  the  Zeus-God  in  seeking  to  destroy 
mankind  has  acted  not  in  caprice  and  hate  but  in  compas- 
sion and  in  love;  that  Kallias,  the  mortal  poet,  in  the  First 


190  Schonbrunn 

Part  of  this  tremendous  work,  possessed  an  insight  denied 
as  yet  to  the  immortal  son  of  Clymene ;  that  from  the  high- 
est life  the  extremest  death-desire  is  born ;  and  that  the  mark 
of  the  tragic  vision  and  the  attainment  of  Being's  consum- 
mating glory  is  the  intensity  with  which  the  human  soul, 
in  art  before  a  great  tragedy,  in  action  before  some  mighty 
passion  frustrated,  arraigns  Being  itself  and  Being's  God." 

In  the  last  war,  more  furious  and  if  possible  wider  in  its 
destroying  rage  than  the  first,  Prometheus  is  again  van- 
quished, and  this  time  forever.  It  is  Annihilation's  vic- 
tory. His  immortality  becomes  mortal,  and  as  he  sinks  in 
eternal  night,  the  world-doom  and  the  God-doom,  Being's 
total  ablation,  are  clearly  foreboded ;  yet  even  in  that  horror- 
striking  moment,  it  is  upon  the  Zeus-God  that  the  spec- 
tators' hearts  are  concentrated,  and  in  the  chorus  which 
concludes  the  entire  drama  they  hear  at  once  the  dirge  for 
Prometheus  and  the  paean  and  death-song  of  the  Zeus-God, 
also,  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Universe  itself. 

"Behold  the  courses  of  the  evening,  how  they  gather 
above  the  sunset,  squadron  behind  squadron  arrayed  in 
their  glory!  What  splendour!  What  brightness!  Their 
forms  outnumber  the  forest  in  multitude,  and  their  hues, 
the  mine — crimson  and  emerald,  amethyst  and  gold.  But 
the  sun  goeth  down,  and  their  glory  is  withered.  So  shall 
I  sink,  so  shall  I,  the  everlasting  God,  sink  and  go  down; 
and  the  cloud-pavilions,  my  worlds,  shall  be  dispersed  and 
vanish  away.  But  I  know  whither  I  go,  voyaging  beyond 
Being  to  my  timeless  rest;  yea,  I  know  whither  I  go. 

"Behold,  I  show  you  a  mystery  within  a  mystery.  I 
perish  and  my  worlds  perish.  Their  anguish  is  ended,  and 
on  the  pathways  of  infinitude  their  dust  is  no  more  seen. 
But  I  am  the  anguish  of  my  worlds,  and  their  dust  am  I 
which  has  vanished.  I  am  their  strivings ;  and  their  death- 
agonies  am  I.  Behold,  I  show  you  a  mystery  within  a 
mystery.  The  anguish  and  the  dust  die  not,  and  the  suffer- 


The  Making  of  a  Poet  191 

ing  and  the  victory  are  not  in  vain.  For,  transfigured,  I 
pass,  and  the  drama  of  Being  is  ended  and  the  Tragic  Doom 
is  fulfilled." 

"What,  in  plain  prose,  is  the  final  impression  left  on  the 
mind  by  this  extraordinary  work?"  says  Axel  Petersen  in 
the  critique  already  quoted.  "What  is  the  dramatist's 
message?  What  at  last  is  the  unifying  idea  of  this  play, 
astonishing  the  mind  by  its  myriad-sided  suggestiveness, 
here  startling  us  by  a  trait  drawn  from  the  Zend  Avesta  or 
the  remoter,  more  mysterious  East,  there  by  a  phrase  that 
upcalls  the  lost  religion  of  Mithras  or  the  better-known 
faiths  of  Judaea,  Persia,  Egypt,  Babylonia,  Hellas?  Amid 
all  this  dazzling,  knowledge-steeped  variousness  of  ideas 
and  rich  and  tapestried  imaginings,  one  purpose  shines — to 
give  God  a  newer  voice  and  to  give  man  a  newer  vision. 
And  I,  for  one,  welcome  the  poet-mystic's  daring,  and  praise 
his  high  endeavour;  for — and  here  I  speak  not  for  myself 
only  but  for  many  in  Vienna  and  for  many  in  Germany — 
it  is  not  new  governments,  but  a  new  vision  of  God  that  this 
age  is  now  waiting  for.  Our  hearts  are  sick  of  dreams  and 
the  irrealizable  promises  of  revolutions;  sick  too  of  the 
refurbishing  of  old  institutions  and  the  promulgation  of  new 
laws.  Prometheus  in  this  tragedy  realizes  these  to  the  ut- 
most; earth  and  this  universe  under  his  brief  dominion 
leave  no  Utopian  vision  and  utilitarian  hope  unfulfilled. 
And  what  at  its  height  is  his  prayer  and  the  prayer  of  the 
worlds?  It  is  for  the  earthquake-rent  Caucasus.  It  is  for 
the  lightnings  of  his  God-adversary.  To  what  end  has  he 
raised  existence  to  its  height,  unless  that  out  of  the  ecstasy 
of  Being  the  darker,  mightier  ecstasy  of  Annihiliation  may 
arise?" 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  VIENNESE   SUPPER  PARTY 


OHORTLY  before  ten  o'clock  Rentzdorf,  unable  any 
O  longer  to  control  his  impatience  to  see  his  mistress, 
quitting  the  Opera,  called  a  hackney  coach. 

As  he  was  about  to  enter  it  he  involuntarily  glanced  at 
the  driver. 

' '  What ! "  he  exclaimed.     ' '  Caspar  ?     Is  it  Caspar  ? ' ' 

"Yes,  sir,  it  is  Caspar  Karstens. " 

Rentzdorf  looked  with  stupefaction  at  the  man  and  then 
at  the  horse.  Its  wretched  leanness  pierced  even  the  un- 
clipped  coat,  thick  as  a  fur.  The  harness  was  patched,  tied 
in  places  with  string,  and  everywhere  rusty  and  worn.  Yet 
before  the  war  this  man  was  one  of  the  smartest  drivers  in 
Vienna. 

But  there  was  nothing  to  be  said,  and  both  men  knew  it. 
It  was  war. 

"To  the  Rothenthurm,  sir?" 

"No;  the  Palazzo  Esterthal." 

As  they  trotted  through  the  narrow  streets,  here  lighted 
with  oil  lamps,  there  dark,  silent,  and  deserted,  a  watchman 
passed,  chanting  his  refrain — 

"Horet  was  ich  euch  will  sagen, 
Die  Glock'  hat  zehn  geschlagen." 
192 


A  Viennese  Supper  Party  193 

The  melancholy  sound,  heard  m  childhood,  heard  in 
youth  and  early  manhood,  affected  Rentzdorf  singularly. 
His  mind  had  for  months  been  accustomed  to  the  bivouac 
silences  or  turmoil,  punctuated  at  intervals  by  bugle  calls 
or  the  distant  movement  of  troops. 

They  were  now  skirting  the  broad  park  which  lay  to  the 
east  of  the  Hofburg.  His  thoughts  concentrated  in  sudden 
violent  passion  on  his  mistress.  Distinct  as  Artemis  bathing 
on  a  moonlit  night  in  Thessaly,  her  figure  burned  there  before 
him  in  pallid,  unearthly  splendour.  It  was  on  such  a  night 
and  within  those  very  walls  of  the  old  palace  of  the  Habs- 
burgs  that  he  had  first  met  her — three  years  and  a  half  ago. 

It  was  in  1806.  A  series  of  brilliant  festivities  celebrated 
the  new  title  of  "Emperor  of  Austria"  which,  forestalling 
Napoleon's  design,  Francis  II.  had  assumed.  The  disasters 
of  Ulm  and  Austerlitz  seemed  already  forgotten.  Vienna 
had  recovered  her  gaiety  and  her  magnificence.  Strellein, 
the  equerry  to  the  Empress  Ludovica,  had  revived  those 
quadrilles  on  horseback  which,  a  generation  earlier,  Maria 
Theresa  had  made  fashionable.  Like  the  other  fetes  in- 
vented by  that  great  sovereign,  those  quadrilles  were 
adapted  to  her  own  tastes  and  to  her  own  handsome  person, 
and  they  had  not  outlived  her  ten  years.  Their  revival  by  a 
foreign  princess  pleased  the  Viennese.  It  gave  the  gazettes 
the  opportunity  of  recalling  Austria's  victories  over  Freder- 
ick and  Prussia's  measureless  rapacity. 

It  was  on  a  June  night,  sultry  and  still,  that  Rentzdorf 
first  saw  one  of  these  dances.  At  Mohacz  he  had  finished  an 
act  of  his  Prometheus,  and,  in  singular  exaltation,  he  had 
come  to  Vienna  to  see  Johann  and  Bolli. 

His  surprise  when,  in  the  Rittersaal,  he  saw  the  horse- 
women arrange  themselves  for  the  quadrille,  had  in  a  mo- 
ment become  interest,  then  delight — the  flare  of  the  torches, 
the  music,  the  rhythmic  beat  of  the  hoofs,  the  youth  and 
grace  of  the  riders;  and,  as  the  dance  proceeded,  his  delight 


194  Schonbrunn 

had  become  a  fixed  dream  through  which  devolved  the 
images  of  life's  extremes  of  beauty  and  of  daring,  of  woman's 
beauty  and  of  war;  and,  every  faculty  alit,  he  saw  or  seemed 
to  see  actualized  the  very  shapes  which  in  the  woods  at 
Mohacz  he  had  been  brooding — the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon, 
the  temple  decorated  by  Scopas,  the  forms  of  tragic  myth 
and  drama.  And  it  was  whilst  he  stood  there,  bound  by  the 
triple  spell  of  music,  woman's  grace,  and  visionary  thought, 
that,  still  in  this  trance-like  state,  his  blood  rushed  out  like 
fire  towards  one  of  the  riders;  and  in  that  passage  of  time, 
most  like  a  dream,  a  passion  began  in  Rentzdorf's  spirit 
which  swept  into  itself  every  faculty — the  senses'  thrill,  the 
imagination's  glory,  the  will's  energy,  the  intellect's  soaring 
scrutiny. 

Love  may  or  may  not  arise  at  first  sight;  but  in  the  rela- 
tions of  a  man  to  a  woman  the  transition  from  friendship, 
however  intimate,  to  passion,  however  incipient,  is  abrupt 
and  well-defined.  Friendship,  love,  passion — Rentzdorf 
experienced  all  for  that  unknown  horsewoman  during  the 
brief  space  that  the  dance  lasted. 

The  riders  that  night  were  in  three  groups,  fifteen  ladies 
in  all,  drawn  from  the  foremost  families  of  Vienna  and 
Presburg.  Five  dressed  in  pale  pink  rode  grey  horses,  five 
in  light  blue  rode  black  horses,  and  five  in  white  or  ivory 
silk  rode  horses  of  a  deep  bay  or  roan  colour. 

When  in  a  figure  of  the  dance  her  horse  reared  danger- 
ously, her  eyes  under  her  short  veil  flashed  a  smile  to  Johann 
and  Toe,  beside  whom  Rentzdorf  was  standing.  Master- 
ing her  horse,  she  instantly  took  her  place  in  the  stepping, 
curvetting,  circling  throng.  A  mist  of  music  environed  her. 
That  was  the  moment  in  which  friendship  became  passion. 
It  was  in  that  moment  also  that  he  saw  that  she  was  in  white, 
riding  a  bay. 

The  act,  swift  as  lighting,  by  which  she  had  mastered  the 
bay  had  strung  her  figure  to  the  utmost,  outlining  every 


A  Viennese  Supper  Party  195 

contour  from  stirrup  to  knee,  from  hips  to  shoulders  and 
wrists.  Not  in  his  dreams  nor  in  creative  ecstasy  of  poetry 
had  Rentzdorf  seen  a  shape  more  fair. 

"Three  and  a  half  years  ago  and  a  June  midnight .... 
It  was  yesterday." 

The  vision  had  disappeared.  He  heard  the  clatter  of  his 
hackney's  hoofs.  Around  him  the  darkness  of  Vienna 
streets,  and  in  front  there  loomed  the  grim  outline  of  the 
Molker  bastion  and  the  Molker  Thor. 


II 

The  supper-room  of  the  Palazzo  Esterthal  was,  like  the 
other  apartments,  furnished  in  a  style  of  sombre  and  faded 
magnificence — candelabra  and  massive  ornaments  in  bronze, 
deep  crimson  hangings  in  damask,  whilst  the  panelling, 
tables,  and  chairs  were  of  the  dark  woods  familiar  in  the 
courts  of  Naples  and  Madrid.  Even  the  modern  paintings, 
including  one  of  Amalie  herself  and  one  of  her  husband  wear- 
ing the  uniform  of  Ferdinand  IV.'s  Guard,  both  executed  at 
Naples  by  a  follower  of  Ribera,  were  in  the  Spanish  style. 

Rentzdorf  reached  the  palace  at  about  half-past  ten. 
In  the  hall,  as  was  the  custom  in  Vienna,  he  gave  his  sword 
to  a  servant  before  entering  the  supper-room. 

The  company,  amounting  still  to  some  fifty  or  sixty  per- 
sons, was  more  numerous  than  he  had  expected.  At  a 
glance  he  took  in  its  character;  diplomatists,  secretaries,  a 
minister,  and  other  representatives  of  various  State  depart- 
ments and  their  satellites.  Except  the  old  Count  and  two 
generals  of  Joseph  II. 's  period,  not  a  soldier  was  present. 

Such  a  company  in  Amalie's  house  would  have  bored 
Rentzdorf  at  any  time;  to-night  it  was  exasperating  to 
excess. 

"To  see  her,  to  be  near  her,"  thought  he,  "bored  even 
with  her  boredoms!" 


196  Schonbrunn 

It  was  not  the  rose,  but  it  was  at  least  the  rose's  shadow. 

Rentzdorf  walked  straight  towards  Amalie,  forcing  a 
dignitary  who  was  about  to  kiss  her  hand  to  step  aside  with 
a  bland,  unfriendly  smile. 

This  was  Minister  von  Stiegerling,  who  in  his  civic  capa- 
city had  been  permitted  to  remain  in  Vienna.  There  was, 
the  wits  alleged,  an  additional  reason.  Napoleon  delighted 
to  honour  the  man  to  whom  he  owed  the  glories  of  Ulm  and 
Austerlitz;  for  Stiegerling  it  was  who,  in  October,  1805,  had 
persuaded  the  shifty  Francis  II.  to  make  his  quarter-master 
Mack  commander-in-chief,  and  it  was  Stiegerling  whose 
corruption  or  incapacity  was  responsible  for  the  condition 
of  the  army  in  that  fatal  year — not  a  battery  with  its  equip- 
ment of  horses,  not  a  regiment  or  squadron  which  had  more 
than  two-fifths  of  its  officers  with  the  colours.  Disgraced 
by  Stadion,  this  man  had,  in  February,  1808,  recovered  his 
prestige,  and  now,  it  was  rumoured,  his  was  the  secret  force 
behind  the  sinister  and  rapid  advance  of  Metternich. 

Rentzdorf  had  always  regarded  Stiegerling  with  mistrust 
and  contempt.  To-night  he  answered  his  false  compli- 
ments with  cold  ceremoniousness ;  but  the  minister,  lifting 
up  his  powerful  frame  and  large  face  simmering  with  fat, 
turned  again  to  Amalie,  though  still  addressing  Rentzdorf, 
and  said  in  his  authoritative  but  curious  tenor  voice : 

"You  will  permit  me,  sir,  to  finish  what  I  was  saying  to 
her  Illustriousness  ?  For  I  was  observing  that  what  our 
gracious  Emperor  desires  is  not  men  imbued  with  new  ideas 
and  subversionary  theories,  but  men  faithful  to  the  tradi- 
tions which  in  the  past  have  made  Austria  glorious,  and, 
in  the  future,  shall  keep  her  great.  In  a  word,"  he  said, 
dropping  suddenly  into  his  famous  "homely"  manner, 
"what  Francis  II.  wants  in  his  subjects  are  simple  loyal 
hearts.  Mushroom  empires  depend  for  their  prestige  on 
newfangled  titles  and  dignities.  Austria  is  old — 

A  sound  that  was  like  a  groan  of  ironic  assent  interrupted 


A  Viennese  Supper  Party  197 

the  reed-like  voice.  Rentzdorf,  glancing  in  the  direction  of 
the  sound,  saw  Count  Johann,  Alexis  Rasumowski  and 
Max  Dietrich,  Lan-Lan's  brother,  with  a  bevy  of  ladies 
standing  under  a  full-length  portrait  of  the  Archduke  Maxi- 
milian. All  were  gazing,  with  eyes  brimming  with  laughter 
or  scorn,  straight  across  at  Stiegerling. 

"It  is  a  company  of  the  Bianchi  defying  the  Neri, " 
Amalie  said  laughingly  to  Rentzdorf.  "And  you,  Herr  von 
Stiegerling,  you  are  a  finished  Corso  Donati. " 

"Madame,"  was  the  answer,  "you  doubtless  praise  me 
beyond  my  poor  merits;  but  I  am  unversed  in  Florentine 
history."  And,  unperturbed,  he  continued:  "Such,  I  say, 
are  the  men  that  our  good  sovereign  needs — not  the  so- 
called  men  of  ideas,  andfrondeurs,"  he  interjected,  with  an 
adder-like  glance  from  between  the  black  narrow  slits  of  his 
heavy-lidded  eyes  in  the  direction  of  Count  Johann. 

And  with  an  unctuous  smile  he  again  took  Amalie's  hand, 
and  cited  for  the  hundredth  time  the  courage  of  the  Cister- 
cian monk  who  at  Wagram  had  carried  the  sacred  wafers 
in  a  pyx  from  one  death-haunted  spot  to  another  of  the 
battlefield,  administering  them  to  the  wounded  of  both 
armies. 

He  then  bowed  deeply,  and,  with  a  viperish  smile  to 
Rentzdorf,  he  very  slowly  quitted  the  room,  turning  at  the 
door  to  give  some  instructions  to  his  under-secretary,  Ger- 
lach,  a  studious-looking  personage  in  spectacles,  with  dirty- 
ish  grey  hair  and  a  thin,  unhealthy  beard,  who  at  one  time 
had  been  a  professor  at  Jena.  For  Stiegerling  was  a  man  of 
culture ;  year  by  year  on  the  9th  of  May  he  sent  a  wreath  to 
Schiller's  grave;  he  had  devised  in  1807  the  visit  of  August 
von  Schlegel  to  Vienna.  He  had  even  hoped  at  one  time  to 
induce  Kant  to  quit  Konigsberg  for  the  Austrian  capital. 

The  pressure  around  Amalie  increased;  and  Rentzdorf 
was  turning  away  when  immediately  on  his  left  he  encoun- 
tered a  slim  figure  in  white,  tall,  with  a  pale  face,  sparkling 


198  Schonbrunn 

eyes,  clustering  brown  curls,  and  a  voice  that  trembled  a 
little. 

"Nusschen?"  he  said  questioningly. 

Since  he  had  left  Vienna  the  girl  had  become  a  woman. 

"Yes,  it  is  Nusschen,"  came  a  laughing  answer;  and  Toe 
stood  beside  her,  the  two  confronting  him.  "Will  you 
dance  with  us  to-night?" 

But  a  masterful  hand  was  laid  on  Rentzdorf 's  arm. 

"I  must  rescue  you  from  these  sirens,"  said  Johann. 
"You  must  in  any  case  have  something  to  eat.  Even  poets 
cannot  live  on  your  blandishments  only, "  he  said  to  the  two 
women. 

And  sitting  down  with  Rentzdorf  at  some  distance  he 
poured  out  his  wine,  taking  it  from  a  servant  in  the  Esterthal 
livery. 

"Why  did  you  come  to  this  house?"  he  asked  in  an  under- 
tone. "That  parasite  of  Stiegerling's  is  just  the  fellow  to 
pass  the  word." 

Rentzdorf 's  dark  penetrating  eyes  rested  for  a  moment  on 
Count  Johann's. 

"There  is  no  danger.  I  cannot  be  arrested  without  an 
order  from  Bonaparte,  and,  by  morning,  unless  this  peace 
is  signed,  I  shall  be  on  my  way  to  Buda  again. " 

He  spoke  in  the  same  low  tones  as  Count  Johann;  but  the 
latter,  feeling  himself  observed,  said  aloud:  "You  heard 
Stiegerling  the  Magnificent?  It  is  an  insult  to  the  Floren- 
tine to  call  those  piteous  ineptitudes  Machiavellian;  is  it 
not  so,  your  Excellency?" 

He  turned  abruptly  and  faced  the  man  whose  shadow  he 
had  felt  approaching. 

It  was  the  noted  jurist,  Theodor  Maas,  an  Aulic  Council- 
lor. His  squat,  bristly  fingers  had  several  rings  on  them. 
Though  not  fifty,  his  dry,  shrewd,  clean-shaven  face  was 
already  covered  with  countless  thread-like  wrinkles  that 
ran  in  circles  across  his  brow  and  down  his  cheeks  where, 


A  Viennese  Supper  Party  199 

on  either  side  of  his  long  nose  and  thin  irregular  lips,  they 
met  the  wrinkles  of  his  chin,  and  whenever  he  spoke  every 
wrinkle  darted  and  moved  till  the  whole  face  shook.  He 
spoke  habitually  in  rasping,  husky,  but  very  deliberate  tones, 
and  now,  ignoring  Count  Johann's  remark  and  greeting 
Rentzdorf  with  a  vinegary  effusiveness,  he  asked  shrilly : 

"Anything  more  known  of  that  queer  affair  at  Schon- 
brunn?  What?  Nothing?  Not  even  at  the  embassy?" 

"No,"  Count  Johann  said  curtly;  and  to  Rentzdorf  he 
added,  "  Maas  knows  more  secrets  than  any  man  in  Vienna, 
yet  he  is  always  in  search  of  news. " 

The  councillor  grinned  complacently,  and  with  a  gro- 
tesque affectation  of  frankness,  said  to  Johann: 

"Now  who  will  tell  me  why  everything  in  Austria  is  done 
in  this  hugger-mugger  fashion?  Nobody  knows  whether 
we  are  at  peace  or  war,  whether  our  good  Emperor  is  with- 
holding from  his  children  a  pleasant  surprise  until  he  can 
announce  it  in  person  in  our  streets,  or  whether  Bonaparte, 
to  save  appearances,  desires  to  leave  Schonbrunn  before  his 
humiliation  is  known.  For  example,  this  evening  in  the 
Leopoldstadt  I  heard " 

"Away  with  Stadion!  The  will  of  Metternich  is  the 
will  of  God,"  interjected  the  same  mocking  voice  that  had 
interrupted  Stiegerling. 

"Ah,  ah ! "  exclaimed  Maas,  bringing  the  stubby  forefinger 
of  his  right  hand  vertically  down  upon  the  palm  of  his  left, 
and  he  seemed  about  to  say  something  murderous;  but 
changing  his  intention,  he  strutted  from  the  spot. 

Count  Johann  was  the  outspoken  enemy  of  the  Metter- 
nich faction,  and  he  had  been  the  first  to  satirize  Gentz's 
fatuous  proposal  of  a  new  capital.  He  had  denounced  not 
less  indignantly  the  Metternich  policy  of  a  censored  theatre, 
a  gagged  press,  universal  espionage,  and  the  fortress  or  the 
dungeon  as  the  only  political  arguments  worthy  of  a  strong 
government. 


20O  Schonbrunn 

"Our  good  Emperor, "  he  said,  when  the  Aulic  Councillor 
was  out  of  hearing,  "is  withholding  from  his  children  not  a 
pleasant  surprise  but  another  damnable  surrender.  Two 
such  crows  as  Maas  and  Stiegerling  would  not  have  croaked 
in  tune  unless  they  had  scented  the  corpse  of  Austria's 
honour.  My  bluff  was  nearer  the  mark  than  I  knew.  We 
may  know  before  midnight.  But  yonder  Toe  and  Nusschen 
are  making  signals  of  distress.  Finish  your  supper,  and  I 
will  bring  them  to  you.  The  crowd  is  dispersing. " 

In  a  second  or  two  the  Countess  Markowitz  took  the  seat 
vacated  by  her  brother-in-law. 

Rentzdorf  turned  to  her  gladly. 

The  Countess,  though  a  motherly  woman,  was  "literary" 
and  of  advanced  tastes,  and  in  her  Thursday  reunions  her 
circle  regularly  discussed  Prometheus  and  the  Essays — but 
they  discussed  also  Werner's  Templars  and  Kotzebue's 
Incas.  She  was  a  Saxon,  and  though  bearing  one  of  the 
greatest  names  in  Austria  had  the  pretension  to  look  down 
upon  Vienna  from  the  heights  of  Dresden  asstheticism. 
To-night  this  idiosyncrasy  appeared  almost  immediately. 

"Does  not  Daruka, "  she  said,  "add  just  the  touch  of 
barbaric  sumptuousness  that  one  instinctively  seeks  in  a 
Vienna  salon?  This  is  the  fifth  dress  she  has  worn  to-day, 
each  gorgeous  as  this.  Nobody  has  a  chance  of  looking 
anything  else  but  dowdy." 

Rentzdorf  looked  in  the  direction  indicated  by  the  Coun- 
tess. The  dress  of  Daruka,  Princess  Ternitchsky,  was 
certainly  "barbaric,"  but  splendid — a  blood-red  tunic  em- 
broidered in  black  and  gold  above  a  white  satin  skirt  draped 
with  black  lace  terminating  in  a  heavy  gold  fringe;  a  green 
sash,  also  embroidered  and  fringed,  was  knotted  about  her 
waist,  and  on  her  left  arm  a  silver  serpent  spotted  with 
opals  and  with  eyes  of  topaz  and  jet  coiled  itself,  whilst  into 
her  hair,  which  was  black  and  abundant,  two  long  ropes  of 
pearls  had  been  twisted,  resembling  at  a  distance  luminous 


A  Viennese  Supper  Party  201 

spots  of  milk  thickly  sprinkled  upon  ebony.  This  was  the 
Circassian  alluded  to  by  Amalie  in  her  talk  with  Toe  that 
morning.  Prince  Ternitchsky,  her  husband,  was  said  by 
some  to  have  bought  her  as  a  slave  in  Tiflis;  by  others,  to 
have  won  her  at  the  gaming-table,  her  father,  a  Circassian 
chief,  having,  after  excessive  losses,  staked  first  his  slaves, 
then  his  homestead,  then  his  wife,  and  last  his  daughter. 
But  the  tribe  by  the  threats  of  death  or  mutilation  had  com- 
pelled Ternitchsky  to  marry  her.  Vienna  had  at  first  re- 
fused to  receive  her ;  but  a  duel  or  two  had  imposed  respect 
or  silence  on  his  friends  and  Daruka's  "savage"  naivete  and 
goodness  of  heart  established  her  position.  From  being  re- 
fused she  became  the  fashion.  Her  outlandish  pronunciation 
of  the  Viennese  dialect,  her  quaint  idioms,  her  appetite  for 
sweetmeats,  her  delight  in  stories  of  primitive  revenge,  es- 
pecially stories  of  unfaithful  women  punished  by  devilish 
tortures — eyes  torn  out,  fingers  and  toes  amputated  joint 
by  joint — became  the  rage. 

But  at  that  moment  Fritz  Wollmoden,  a  nephew  of  the 
plenipotentiary,  came  forward  to  introduce  to  the  Countess 
Markowitz  his  newly  married  wife,  a  Saxon  also,  round- 
featured,  but  bursting  with  youth  and  health,  and  lightly 
clad  as  a  mountain  nymph.  Toe  and  Nusschen  meantime 
had  fallen  into  the  clutches  of  Alexis  Rasumowski  and  Count 
Johann  was  powerless  to  rescue  them. 

Rentzdorf  was  for  some  minutes  left  undisturbed.  He 
rose  and  was  about  to  move  to  another  part  of  the 
room,  but  he  sat  down  again,  letting  his  eyes  pass  from  the 
faces  around  to  the  portraits  of  the  Spanish  school  on 
the  walls,  pausing  in  troubled  fixity  on  that  of  Amalie.  It 
showed  her  as  a  girl  of  seventeen,  a  figure  of  youthful,  up- 
springing  grace  in  a  simple  black  mantilla;  yet  no  one  could 
look  on  the  picture  and  not  ask — Who  is  she  ?  To  be  kissed 
by  those  lips — has  earth  or  heaven  any  more  entrancing 
dream?  But  Rentzdorf  had  the  curse,  if  also  the  reward,  of 


202  Schonbrunn 

imagination;  he  could  never  see  this  picture  without  also 
conjuring  up  her  life  in  Naples  as  Esterthal's  bride — 
the  licentious  court,  the  theatres,  the  Cytherean  dances, 
the  moonlight  parties  on  the  bay. 

From  the  portrait  Rentzdorf  looked  to  Amalie  herself. 
She  was  standing  with  her  back  to  him,  but  with  her  face  in 
profile;  for,  a  second  before,  she  had  made  a  quick  move- 
ment to  answer  an  importunate  guest — a  movement  which 
dragged  the  pale  and  lustrous  softness  of  her  dress  into 
myriad  folds  about  her  waist  and  knees. 

"God!"  he  muttered  involuntarily,  "how  beautiful!" 

He  felt  the  blood  congest  his  temples,  then  an  icy  tremor 
crept  over  him;  morbidly  oppressed  in  the  magic  of  her 
beauty  there  was  something  demonic  and  malign. 

"And  yet  the  thoughts  I  have  thought  from  woman  are 
the  only  thoughts  that  God  has  thought.  The  things  I 
have  felt  from  woman  are  the  only  things  that  God  has 
felt." 

Yes,  he  told  himself,  he  knew  in  his  mistress  to-night  the 
seduction  as  well  as  the  terror;  he  knew  the  true  nature  of 
the  forces  latent  in  woman's  soul  and  in  woman's  body — the 
resources  of  nature  garnered  there,  fulfilling  the  world-soul's 
plan,  stronger  than  lightning  because  they  are  born  of  the 
lightning,  or  than  war.  What  shall  resist  them? 

Twice  in  his  life  he  had  experienced  war  in  its  most  daunt- 
ing and  harrowing  shape;  he  had  seen  the  frozen  hillsides 
and  valleys  of  Austerlitz,  and  the  wheat-fields  of  Wagram 
in  which,  as  evening  fell,  not  the  corncrake's  call,  but  the 
maledictions  of  tortured  men  made  frightful  the  twilight. 
He  had  heard  on  the  puszta  or  sun-baked  steppes  of  Hun- 
gary the  thunder  making  of  the  elements  a  mimicry  of 
devastation  and  war.  But  in  the  breathing  calm  of  that 
woman's  figure  he  divined  forces  dread  and  sublime  as  the 
elemental  forces  of  tempest  and  revolution;  for  in  her  loveli- 
ness, pale  and  erect,  was  the  very  end,  the  goal,  whither 


,A  Viennese  Supper  Party  203 

across    aeons    of    terror   and   elemental  fury   nature   had 
striven. 

in 

It  was  eleven  o'clock,  but  some  twenty  people  were  still 
present. 

The  departure  of  the  Ternitchskys  had  been  followed  by 
the  inevitable  chatter  about  that  interesting  manage.  Was 
it  true  that  in  Rome  Prince  Ternitchsky,  to  save  the  life  of 
the  enamoured  Canova,  had  "lent"  Daruka  to  the  sculptor, 
exactly  as  Alexander  had  "lent"  Campaspe  to  Appeles? 

"Where  does  Daruka  get  those  perfumes?"  Madame 
Wollmoden  asked  in  her  fresh  girlish  voice,  fanning  herself 
aggressively.  "It  makes  my  head  ache  to  be  near  her." 

"We  shall  teach  you  those  mysteries  in  Vienna,"  Coun- 
tess Markowitz  said  indulgently.  "I  too  had  headaches 
when  I  first  came  from  Dresden." 

Max  Dietrich  narrated  Daruka's  retort  to  Radetsky  at  a 
boar  hunt,  and  her  naive  impressions  of  Bonaparte — "Dat 
your  world-conqueror?  Dat  little  toad?  You  should  see 
my  father."  The  words  had  become  a  caricature,  then  a 
joyous  song. 

Young  Wollmoden,  anxious  to  distinguish  himself,  inter- 
vened. "They  say  at  Rome  that  Bonaparte's  mother  ex- 
hibits herself  to  British  tourists  for  three  gulden  a  head. " 

"Bonaparte's  mother?"  Rasumowski  murmured  to  a 
lady  with  a  sleepy  voice  displaying  a  well-fleshed  forearm  by 
doubling  back  her  elbow.  "If  it  were  his  sister  Pauline ' ' 

Count  Johann,  unable  to  master  his  anger,  said  with 
harsh  deriding  emphasis,  "Our  motherland  exhibits  her 
dotage  to  all  Europe.  Who  pays  her?" 

He  rose,  and  as  he  parted  with  Rentzdorf  said  in  the  same 
voice. 

"This  is  Vienna  in  a  nutshell.     You  know  it  again?" 

"I  shall  see  you  later?"  Rentzdorf  asked. 


204  Schonbrunn 

' '  At  the  Rittersaal  ?     Yes. ' ' 

The  talk  streamed  on,  gossip  and  anecdote,  anecdote  and 
gossip. 

"Bonaparte  himself,  I  am  told,  bores  women,"  the  lady 
with  the  drowsy  voice  remarked. 

"No  wonder,"  Rasumowski  retorted  quickly;  "he  buries 
so  many  men. "  And  overjoyed  at  his  own  mot,  he  repeated 
it,  stressing  the  innuendo. 

His  yellowish  brown  complexion,  broad  face,  wide-set 
eyes,  shining  like  the  back  of  a  beetle,  revealed  the  Tartar 
peasant  original  of  his  house ;  but  his  infectious  good-humour 
was  irresistible,  and  Rentzdorf  laughed  right  out  when 
Rasumowski,  determined  not  to  be  ignored  by  the  poet, 
said  straight  to  him 

"What  is  it  like  to  be  under  grape-shot  for  thirty-five 
minutes,  eh?"  (Rentzdorf 's  regiment  had  had  to  face  this 
ordeal  at  Eckmiihl.)  "  Is  it  as  bad  as  a  thunderstorm  ?  We 
had  an  awful  one  in  Vienna  the  night  before  Wagram.  It 
lasted  seven  hours.  I  slept  through  it  all,  but  nobody  made 
me  a  general  for  my  coolness.  Hard,  I  call  it,  eh?  It's 
always  the  way  in  Austria.  Intrepidity  is  unrecognized 
except  in  the  ranks  of  our  enemies.  See?  Eh?" 

But  Toe  now  turned  with  decision  to  Rentzdorf. 

"Sit  here,"  she  said,  pointing  to  a  canape",  "and  talk  to 
Nusschen  and  me.  You  have  not  said  a  word  to  us  yet. 
And  yonder  comes  Amalie!" 

Toe's  eyes  were  radiant;  her  cheeks  flushed.  Rentzdorf 
had  noticed  that  she  appeared  to  have  an  understanding 
with  Count  Johann.  Was  it  marriage  at  last? 

At  a  distance  the  rumbling  bass  voice  of  Count  Marko- 
witz  was  heard  intoning. 

"That  which  makes  a  great  strategist,"  he  was  saying, 
"is  not  courage;  it  is  the  power  to  form  decision  after  deci- 
sion amid  the  firing  of  guns  and  muskets,  amid  the  cries  of 
mortally  wounded  men  and  horses,  and  to  make  those  de- 


A  Viennese  Supper  Party  205 

cisions  securely  and  collectedly  as  a  mathematician  seated 
before  a  problem  in  his  study.    The  Archduke  Charles ' ' 

rv 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later  Count  Estherthal  was  sitting 
at  the  foot  of  the  chief  table  fast  asleep.  Markowitz's 
rumbling  voice  and  somnolent  aphorisms  had  produced  this 
effect.  The  old  Count  had,  with  stubborn  courtesy,  re- 
sisted the  drowsiness  invading  him;  he  had  closed  first  the 
right  eye,  then  the  left,  in  the  hope  of  relieving  the  strain 
but  the  platitudes  unwound  themselves  endlessly,  and  he 
had  at  last  closed  both  eyes  simultaneously,  and,  to  Toe's 
infinite  amusement,  fallen  fast  asleep. 

"Now  we  can  escape,"  she  whispered  to  Nusschen,  and 
taking  the  girl's  arm  she  slipped  behind  Markowitz's  chair, 
noting  with  comic  dismay  the  resemblance  of  his  square 
shoulders  to  his  brother  Johann's,  and  said  to  him  with 
gravity 

"Padrino  needs  rest.  He  has  to  act  as  Amalie's  escort 
later." 

Count  Markowitz  rose  reluctantly  and  was  followed  by 
the  three  or  four  other  guests  who  still  lingered. 

Toe's  manoeuvre  left  Rentzdorf  and  Amalie  to  themselves. 
The  latter  got  up  and  put  out  the  candles  nearest  to  them, 
thus  surrounding  their  end  of  the  table  with  a  zone  of 
obscurity. 

"  Now  we  are  alone.     Dearest,  dearest.    ..." 

Rentzdorf  did  not  answer.  A  remark  of  Toe's  had  dis- 
covered to  him  that  Count  Ferdinand,  Amalie's  husband, 
had,  less  than  six  weeks  ago,  passed  a  fortnight  in  Vienna 
and  in  this  house.  Amalie  at  the  time  was  writing  to  him 
every  second  day;  but  of  her  husband's  visit  she  had  said 
not  a  word.  Why?  He  had  striven  to  throttle  the  foul 
suspicion,  but  it  had  returned  and  re-returned,  and  now, 
fanned  by  a  tyrannous  imagination,  possessed  him  utterly. 


206  Schonbrunn 

An  hour  ago  there  was  not  on  earth  a  more  radiant  glory 
than  the  glory  which  environed  his  life;  now  a  pit  in  Male- 
bolge  was  not  more  loathesome  and  dark.  An  abominable 
toast  given  at  a  mess  after  the  campaign  kept  rattling  in  his 
brain — "To  the  husbands  of  our  fair  ones  in  Vienna !  May 
they  enjoy  the  repose  our  fatigues  have  granted  them." 
"To  the  husbands  of  our  fair  ones!"  a  voice  had  shouted 
in  drunken  hilarity.  "They  have  a  better  time  than  we 
lovers  ever  imagine.  Crede  experto. " 

"To-night,  to-night!"  Rentzdorf  muttered  to  himself  in 
desperate  misery.  " Oh,  the  irony  of  it .  .  .  .  To-night!" 
And  yet,  he  asked  himself  in  an  outburst  of  cynicism,  what 
was  it  that  he  had  expected  in  Vienna,  and  what  was  it  that 
he  had  found?  One  of  the  most  beautiful  women  in  Austria 
sat  waiting  for  him  to  make  love  to  her.  What  more  could 
the  heart  of  man  desire  ?  True,  five  weeks  ago  this  lady  had 
received  her  husband  under  this  roof  and  into  her  bed. 
What  was  more  natural?  True  again,  it  proved  that  for 
three  years  she  had  day  by  day  been  lying  to  him.  Again, 
what  was  more  natural?  All  women  are  liars.  It  is  a 
commonplace.  There  was  not  a  man  or  woman  of  the  court 
circle  in  Vienna  or  Naples  who  would  not  have  stood  aghast 
with  indignation  or  derision  that  he  should  in  such  a  mistress 
have  expected  any  other  conduct. 

And  murder,  the  authentic  blood-lust,  was  on  him.  The 
torrent  of  insults  which  in  crimes  of  jealousy  are  the  prelude 
to  violence  was  suffocating  him. 

Suddenly  he  burst  into  words — "Is  it  not  singular?  This 
earth  and  all  modern  life  are  gangrened  with  falsehood ;  but 
in  Vienna  no  one  lies.  Society  is  infamy's  sojourn,  but  in 
Vienna  there  are  only  pure  women  and  brave  men — not  a 
single  liar  anywhere.  You  and  I,  Amalie,  liars  both;  how 
can  we  live  in  such  a  city  of  righteousness,  and  how  can  we 
look  in  each  other's  eyes  and  see  the  lies  curling  and  en- 
gendering there?" 


A  Viennese  Supper  Party  207 

It  did  not  seem  his  own  judgment  that  framed  nor  his 
own  voice  that  spoke  the  hideous  words,  but  the  judgment 
and  the  voice  from  the  Irene  Apponyi  period. 

But  seeing  the  misery  in  her  lover's  eyes,  hearing  it  in  his 
voice,  Amalie  was  resolved  to  be  very  patient. 

"If  I  were  the  thing  you  suspect,  Heinrich, "  she  said, 
forcing  down  her  emotion,  "could  I  have  met  you  thus 
to-night?  Or  if  I  imagined  you  believed  in  your  own  sus- 
picions, do  you  suppose  I  should  sit  here  a  second  longer? 
False  to  everyone  else,  these  three  years — to  you,  to  you 
alone  I  have  never  spoken  a  word  save  the  truth.  Why 
should  I  begin  to  lie  to  you  to-night?" 

And  in  a  gentler  voice  she  continued 

"  If  I  did  not  tell  you  myself,  it  was  because  in  my  happi- 
ness I  had  forgotten.  I  wished  to  write  to  you  at  the  time ; 
but  even  in  a  cipher  how  was  I  to  risk  betraying  him?  His 
life  might  have  paid  for  my  rashness.  There  was  daily  a 
talk  of  war.  I  was  distracted  by  my  own  anxiety." 

"Why  did  he  run  that  risk ? "  Rentzdorf  broke  in.  " For 
what  and  for  whom?" 

Amalie  looked  at  her  lover. 

"Not  for  me, "  she  answered  in  tones  through  which  there 
shot  a  gleam  of  laughter.  Yet  the  next  instant  she  was 
trembling  and  a  vivid  blush  swept  over  her  pale  cheeks. 

"It  was  for  Adelheid  Ortski,"  she  said  in  a  low  con- 
strained voice. 

Even  now  Amalie  von  Esterthal  could  not  speak  the  name 
of  her  husband's  mistress,  simply,  as  she  would  have  spoken 
another  woman's  name. 

Dumbfounded,  Rentzdorf  sprang  to  his  feet.  It  was  not 
difficult  for  him  to  divine  the  humiliation  it  must  have  cost 
her  to  speak  these  words. 

"Chichitza?"  he  exclaimed  involuntarily.  "Where  was 
my  Lord  Paget?" 

She  made  a  vague  gesture. 


208  Schonbrunn 

"At  Troppau,  trying,  in  prospect  of  a  renewal  of  the  war, 
to  arrange  a  rapprochement  between  England  and  Prussia. 
Chichitza's  own  indiscretion  had  brought  her  into  danger. 
You  had  not  heard?" 

"I  have  heard  nothing." 

She  told  him  in  a  rapid  imperfect  manner  the  exploit 
against  Napoleon  of  which  Lord  Paget's  mistress  had  been 
the  heroine;  the  theatrical  purchase  of  a  dagger  in  the  Gra- 
ben,  "destined  for  the  tyrant's  heart,"  and  of  Bonaparte's 
famous  comment,  "The  lady  confounds  the  parts  of  Judith 
and  Rahab. " 

Rentzdorf  listened  like  a  man  who  issues  from  a  cavern 
full  of  the  uncouth  shapes  of  darkness  and  the  hovering  of 
obscene  wings  and  suddenly  stands  under  the  sun-steeped 
azure  and  sees  around  and  in  front  of  him  the  sands  and  the 
myriad-twinkling  waters  of  the  sea.  But  even  whilst  joy 
struggled  with  remorse  in  his  heart,  his  imagination  had 
swept  on  to  the  root  cause  of  to-night's  painful  scene,  and 
of  the  mutual  uneasiness  or  suspicion  which  had  disfigured 
other  days  and  other  nights.  It  was  their  sundered  lives — he 
living  in  his  rooms,  she  in  this  palace  as  Esterthal's  wife, 
compelled  on  state  occasions  to  preside  at  his  table,  her 
goings  out  and  her  comings  in,  her  daily  actions,  the  very 
dresses  she  wore,  exposed  to  his  arbitrament.  This  too 
added  a  morbid  element  to  the  misery  of  each  parting,  deep 
enough  in  itself.  For  all  this  there  was  one  remedy — to 
leave  Vienna  together!  And  in  the  vortex  of  their  great 
passion,  greeting  the  sun  each  day  together,  what  a  glory 
transcending  glory  awaited  them! 

He  turned  to  her.  His  words  of  adoration  and  the  pic- 
tures of  their  love-life  together  which  her  own  imagination 
conjured  overwhelmed  her. 

She  sat  with  bent  head. 

"Heinrich!  You  hurt  me.  To-night!  How  I  have 
waited  for  to-night,  and  now  it  harrows  my  very  soul .... 


A  Viennese  Supper  Party  209 

To  be  together?  Ah  God,  as  if  you  did  not  know  my  heart's 
cry.  I  lie  down  at  night.  I  never  sleep  till  in  imagination 
you  take  me  into  your  arms.  Never  a  morning  I  wake  but 
I  wish  you  beside  me,  long  for  you,  stretch  out  my  arms 
for  you  with  a  delicious  horrible  craving.  For  ever,  for 
ever.  But  that  is  the  heaven  which  you  and  I  shall  never 
reach. " 

She  broke  off  with  a  cry  of  abrupt  stifled  anguish.  Then, 
more  calm,  she  resumed — "For  how  is  it  to  be  done?  I  ask 
myself  this  a  thousand  times ;  but  there  is  never  an  answer. 
Besides,  if  you  cannot  trust  me  now,  how  could  you  trust 
me  then?  Would  marriage  keep  me  faithful?" 

It  was  a  flash  of  resentment ;  it  was  a  flash  also  of  the  dis- 
concerting candour  and  humour  which  marked  Amalie  von 
Esterthal — the  candour,  for  instance,  which  had  edged  her 
replies  to  Toe  that  morning.  Suddenly  the  resentment 
vanished  and  her  voice  became  dolorous  in  its  appeal  as  the 
slow  dropping  of  tears.  It  was  vain,  she  pointed  out,  for 
Rentzdorf  and  her  to  speak  of  marriage.  To  them  that  was 
for  ever  denied.  Her  husband  had  all  the  superstitions  as 
well  as  the  courage  of  his  caste.  He  was  cruel,  profligate, 
treacherous,  and  proud;  but  in  his  religion  bigoted  as  a 
Dominican  or  a  Carthusian  friar. 

" To  go  away  together,"  she  concluded,  "that  is  not  for  us. 
We  may  die  together — Ah!"  she  said  with  a  sudden  inspira- 
tion, "it  came  to  us  a  year  ago.  In  the  Sporelberg — do  you 
remember  ?  If  we  had  but  obeyed,  if  we  had  but  taken  that 
path  then " 

Her  voice  had  sunk  to  a  whisper. 

And  suddenly  in  thought  Rentzdorf  was  standing  beside 
her  on  a  ledge  amongst  the  tormented  basalt  crags  of  the 
Sporelberg.  The  last  hour  of  their  last  afternoon  together 
had  come,  for  there  in  a  chalet  in  the  Styrian  Alps  they  had 
passed  three  weeks  in  a  continuous  bliss  which  seemed  less 
like  that  of  mistress  and  mortal  lover  than  that  of  spirits  in 

14 


210  Schonbrunn 

ecstasy.  Together  they  had  lived  Rentzdorfs  faith;  they 
had  lived  the  vision  of  his  Prometheus,  day  transcending 
successive  day;  but  that  afternoon,  confronted  with  the 
return,  he  to  the  army,  she  to  the  social  routine  of  Vienna, 
a  reaction  and  an  immense  sadness  possessed  them. 

"Life's  meaning?  God's  meaning?"  Rentzdorf  had  said 
in  vehement  gloom.  "Nor  life  nor  God  has  any  meaning 
save  this;  Fame,  la  gloire,  we  can  leave  to  Bonaparte;  and 
yet,  you  and  I,  if  all  this  instant  were  to  end,  would  not  be 
forgotten  utterly.  Earth  would  remember  us;  earth  in  her 
deep  centre  would  remember  us,  Amalie,  for  the  things  that 
you  and  I  have  felt  together  and  the  thoughts  that  you  and 
I  have  thought  together." 

Startled,  she  had  stood  for  some  seconds  with  down-bent 
head  and  with  intent  face,  as  though  listening  to  some  inward 
summoner. 

"Yes,"  she  had  answered  at  length,  "if  it  were  to  end 
now?  And  why  should  it  not  end  now? " 

In  an  instant  the  death-impulse  was  on  both.  Speech- 
less yet  panting,  as  in  some  fearful  conflict  in  their  sleep 
they  clung  together,  each  terrorstruck  for  the  other's  safety, 
yet  each  in  desire  seeking  the  other's  destruction.  The 
odours  of  her  hair  and  of  her  neck  maddened  him  by  their 
seduction;  he  clasped  her  closer  to  his  breast,  and  thus  they 
stood  on  the  dizzy  edge.  Uncounted  fathoms  below  them, 
a  thread  of  falling  azure,  raved  the  torrent  of  the  Aar. 

The  crisis  had  not  lasted  many  minutes,  perhaps  not  even 
seconds;  but  every  detail  of  that  wide  landscape  had  particu- 
larized itself  upon  their  memories — upon  hers,  a  piece  of 
schist  about  two  inches  from  the  brink,  that  seemed  to 
crackle  in  the  sun,  and  far  below  a  lake  that  looked  no  bigger 
than  a  tent-roof;  upon  his,  the  chaos  of  tumbled  rocks  and 
mountain  summits  and  overhead  the  lazy  hovering  of  a 
vulture  on  the  watch.  Not  a  quarter  of  an  hour  ago  he  had 
laughed  her  into  "for  peace'  sake,"  the  assertion  that  she 


A  Viennese  Supper  Party  211 

saw  that  same  vulture;  for  her  eyes,  despite  their  dark  and 
luminous  beauty,  were  short-sighted. 

"Is  it  for  us, "  he  had  thought,  "that  this  sentinel  vulture 
waits,  he  and  his  invisible  companions?" 

And,  agonized,  he  had  struggled  to  see  her  face,  that  was 
to  be  the  vulture's  prey.  But  surprised,  blind,  struggling, 
she  had  resisted.  In  her  the  death-desire  raged  on;  and,  to 
his  horror,  he  had  felt  it  again  on  himself  once  more.  To  the 
seduction  of  the  precipice  was  added  the  seduction  of  her 
embrace;  her  entwining  arms  dragged  him  to  the  edge;  her 
lips,  ice  and  fire,  clung  to  his;  and  to  his  single  cry, — her 
name  "Amalie?"  she  had  whispered  the  answer — "It  is 
now,  beloved.  Death;  it  is  now. " 

Her  voice  in  the  ecstasy  of  that  death  yearning  had  been 
her  voice  in  the  ecstasy  of  love  yearning. 

Five  heart-beats  this  lasted;  the  next,  as  though  some 
noxious  vapour  infecting  his  brain  had  dissolved,  he 
wrenched  her  back  from  within  a  foot  of  the  edge,  and 
mortally  pale,  stood  beside  her,  noting  even  then  the  fixed 
flush  on  her  brow,  the  surprise  and  angry  darkness  in  her 
eyes. 

"Reaction  from  passion's  excess,  or  this  vision's  exult- 
ancy," Rentzdorf  reflected,  "she  had  willed  death  that 
afternoon,  there  on  the  ledge  of  the  Sporelberg.  To-night 
in  Vienna,  here  in  this  palace,  she  wills  it  again.  But  that 
other  way — why  does  she  not  will  that  other  way?  Ah, 
my  God,  do  I  myself  will  it ?  Do  I  myself  will  it?  Or  is  all 
this  but  one  of  the  shifting  masks  that  the  ultimate  anguish 
in  things  wears  to-night?" 


The  tenderest  or  the  most  passionate  love  never  brings  a 
man  and  a  woman  nearer  than  two  streams  each  of  which 
between  its  own  banks  seeks  by  its  own  path  the  sea. 


212  Schonbrunn 

Rentzdorf  and  Amalie  von  Esterthal  were  sincere;  yet 
to-night  neither  had  spoken  all  the  truth  to  each  other. 
She,  on  her  side,  left  unexpressed  a  throng  of  half-uncon- 
scious wishes  or  fears — the  wish  to  retain  her  rank,  and, 
above  all,  her  personal  independence.  The  right  to  visit 
and  be  visited  by  "the  world"  she  despised  because  she 
possessed  that  right — it  was  an  encumbrance  and  a  bore, 
but  she  feared  lest,  if  she  lost  it,  its  value  should  assume  giant 
proportions.  Then  there  was  padrino.  She  liked  him  in 
himself,  the  stubborn  unyielding  representative  of  a  caste. 
She  liked  him  also  for  his  chivalrous  cult  for  her  dead  mother. 
Tacitly  too  she  dreaded  lest,  if  they  fled  together,  her  lover 
should  weary  of  a  bond  which,  in  its  exacting  violence,  is 
more  testing  than  marriage.  On  the  other  hand  she  ex- 
perienced, in  bad  moments,  the  married  woman's  distressing 
jealousy  of  the  unmarried  lover.  This  very  night  Nus- 
schen's  girlish  enthusiasm  for  Rentzdorf  had  surprised, 
pleased,  then  disturbed  her.  Rentzdorf,  on  his  side,  equally 
dissimulated  the  inmost  sources  of  his  impatience  or  his 
misery.  He  idolized  her  with  a  passion  too  extreme  or  not 
extreme  enough. 

"For  that  is  the  passion  consummate,"  he  told  himself 
savagely,  "when  the  delights  of  the  woman  we  love,  even 
if  they  ought  to  be  our  Hell,  are  our  Heaven.  But  that  is 
the  impossible,  that  is  the  unseizable. " 

He  turned  to  her,  mastered  by  a  fiercer  yearning,  the  life 
yearning,  the  death  yearning.  All  the  suppressed  passion 
of  the  day  scorched  in  his  blood.  Never  had  the  beauty  of 
her  person  been  more  enthralling.  The  earth  her  body 
pressed  would  have  turned  to  roses  in  his  lips. 

"Amalie!" 

But  she  sprang  back. 

"Hush!"  she  whispered.     "Be  careful." 

He  followed  her  glance  to  the  distant  table  where  the  old 
Count  still  sat.  He  had  stirred  in  his  sleep. 


A  Viennese  Supper  Party  213 

"Padrino?"  Amalie  called  out  softly.     "Padrino?" 

There  was  no  answer.  The  quiet  breathing  continued. 
The  sleeper's  posture  had  not  changed.  He  sat  with  droop- 
ing head,  his  chin  on  his  breast,  his  hands  laid  along  the 
arms  of  his  chair.  The  sleeping  figure  of  the  old  warrior 
and  diplomat  affected  Rentzdforf .  It  had  the  pathos  of  all 
helpless  suffering  things;  but  something  in  the  patrician 
features  suggested  his  son,  Amalie's  husband,  and  the  spell 
was  broken. 

His  mistress  had  risen. 

Laying  her  finger  on  her  lips,  she  glided  to  a  curtained 
recess  which  opened  out  of  this  room.  This  recess  or  room, 
which  looked  on  the  cedar  avenue,  was  richly  furnished,  but 
in  a  more  modern  taste.  On  state  occasions,  when  the 
Archduke  dined  with  Count  Ferdinand,  the  curtains  were 
removed  and  the  host  and  his  imperial  guest,  and  perhaps 
two  other  guests  of  princely  rank,  sat  here  together,  sepa- 
rated from  yet  one  with  the  company  in  the  supper  room. 
It  was  the  Habsburg  tradition.  Charles  V.  at  Innsbruck 
had  often  sat  thus  with  Titian. 

Rentzdorf  sprang  forward  to  where  she  waited,  a  glitter- 
ing sorcery  with  her  white  arm  outstretched,  holding  back 
the  curtain. 

Twilight  shrouded  the  recess.  Through  the  window  on 
the  right  they  could  see  the  cedars  and  the  steep  gloom  of  the 
night  sky.  Amalie  drew  her  lover  to  a  sofa  that  stood  under 
a  fresco  in  Guide's  manner  on  the  further  wall. 

"Our  voices  will  not  disturb  him  here.  Beloved,  my 
beloved.  .  .  . " 

He  shuddered  at  her  caress.  The  passion  in  her  blood 
shot  like  a  fluid  magnetism  tingling  into  his  own. 

"We  will  talk  of  the  future  to-morrow,"  she  whispered. 
"To-morrow  I  will  give  you  my  answer.  To-night — oh 
let  me  kiss  you." 

He  drew  her  to  his  breast. 


214  Schonbrunn 

"I  am  answered  already,  Amalie.  There  is  neither  past 
nor  future.  This  is  the  everlasting  Now  of  God's  desire 
and  God's  dream,  in  you,  in  me.  The  rest  is  nothingness. " 

"Dearest,  dearest,"  she  murmured,  looking  up  at  him. 
"What  hours  we  have  lost — days  and  weeks  and  months 
torn  from  us;  and  if  we  had  them  all  that  all  would  be  so 
little.  It  has  been  like  death.  This  morning  for  the  first 
time  I  saw  the  autumn  woods.  And  look  at  my  hands;  I 
have  forgotten  to  care  for  them  or  for  anything." 

He  kissed  her  finger  tips  one  by  one,  lingering  over  the 
exquisitely  set  nails.  He  kissed  her  wrists;  he  kissed  her 
arms  to  the  hollow  of  the  elbows. 

"Beloved, "  she  said,  "oh,  my  beloved,  this  is  very  heaven 
of  heaven,  merely  to  breathe,  merely  to  feel  your  touch;  but 
when  you  are  not  there  I  am  no  better  than  the  sea-shell 
that  lies  on  the  shore  and  waits  for  the  tide  to  fill  all  its 
winding  and  secret  recesses.  I  am  the  shell;  your  coming 
is  the  tide.  .  .  .  " 

He  interrupted  her. 

"No,  no;  let  me  speak,"  she  pleaded.  "When  you  are 
not  with  me  I  have  neither  thoughts  to  utter  nor  feelings 
to  cry  out,  except  suffering  and  ennui.  Do  you  remember 
that  night  at  Semmering  in  the  gardens?" 

She  alluded  to  one  of  those  assignations  when  to  their 
rapt  thought  time  was  interrupted,  and  together  they  felt 
the  river  of  the  worlds  sweep  through  their  trances.  But  the 
river  was  God;  and  the  sea  towards  which  it  hastened  was 
Being's  annihilation.  Her  words  were  the  utterance  of  a 
woman's  passions,  but  they  were  also  the  enfevered  grati- 
tude of  a  woman  driven  desperate  by  scepticism  to  her 
deliverer,  to  the  poet-visionary  who  had  revealed  to  her  a 
new  God — a  God  in  herself  as  in  the  worlds. 

Her  words,  her  accent,  her  burning  caresses,  were  a  trans- 
port unendurable.  This  woman  who  bent  over  him,  in- 
toxicating him  by  the  mist  of  odours  from  her  hair,  her 


A  Viennese  Supper  Party  215 

shoulders,  her  total  person,  this  was  no  longer  woman,  but  a 
diviner,  more  ethereal  substance,  assuaging  the  world-soul's 
thirst  raging  in  his  blood.  Beauty  herself  in  all  its  radiance 
supernal  was  at  this  moment  unmasked  to  his  senses  and  to 
his  soul. 

VI 

A  heavy  sound  broke  in  on  their  bliss-steeped  dream.  It 
was  like  the  fall  of  armour.  Both  started  to  their  feet  and 
stood  listening. 

The  sound  was  not  repeated. 

"It  is  nothing,"  Amalie  said.  "A  servant  closing  a 
door." 

She  drew  him  to  her  side  again. 

"Ah,"  she  said  hoarsely,  "it  was  death,  that  moment; 
living  God's  death,  dying  God's  life.  ..." 

Her  eyes  smouldered.  She  locked  and  unlocked  her 
fingers  into  his. 

"  I  cannot  let  you  go, "  she  said  again.  "  My  whole  being 
thrills  to  you;  every  fibre  aches  for  you.  I  cannot  let  you 
go;  every  vein  tingles  for  you.  I  cannot  let  you  go.  O 
God,  Heinrich,  Heinrich.  ..." 

She  flung  herself  down  in  prostrate  abandonment.  She 
lay  thus  for  many  seconds.  Then  a  frightful  weeping  con- 
vulsed her.  It  was  the  everlasting  parting.  He  knew  it; 
and  in  his  own  sombre  brooding  her  grief  was  his — God's 
anguish  for  the  beauty  which  He  forever  creates  and  for- 
ever destroys. 

" It  must  be  past  midnight, "  he  said  at  length.  "When 
ought  you  to  be  at  the  Rittersaal?" 

His  own  emotion  pierced  through  the  quiet  words.  He 
looked  at  the  beautiful  woman  in  self-abandoning  grief  and 
passion;  but  in  such  intervals  the  soul  which  is  most  pros- 
trate is  the  most  exalted,  highest,  holiest. 


2i6  Schonbrunn 

"I  need  not  go  at  all." 

There  was  a  feverous  energy  in  her  voice,  on  her  brow, 
in  her  eyes — the  working  of  restless  thought  scheming  the 
prolongation  of  this  spiritual  anguish  and  bliss. 

"Listen,"  she  said  eagerly,  and  she  raised  her  head;  but, 
at  the  sight  of  his  face,  with  a  happy  tormented  sighing  she 
pressed  her  mouth  repeatedly  to  his,  speaking  amid  kisses 
as  amid  falling  roses.  "There  is  a  way.  Yes;  yes.  For  at 
least  two  hours  I  need  not  be  at  the  Rittersaal.  The  ball 
will  go  on  till  five.  Listen.  Go  into  the  hall,  put  on  your 
sword,  and  send  Schwartz  to  order  the  carriage  for  one  or 
half  past  one.  Then  go  to  my  room  as  though  to  fetch  my 
domino;  but,  by  accident,  leave  your  sword  in  my  room. 
You  will  then  say  good-night  to  padrino  and  to  me;  and, 
closing  the  hall  door  loudly,  go  back  to  my  room  and  wait 
there." 

She  sprang  to  her  feet. 

"You  wonder!"  he  muttered.  But  on  her  account  not 
quite  at  ease  in  his  mind,  he  asked.  "Who  is  the  servant  on 
duty  after  midnight?" 

"  Patzsch's  son.  Fritz  is  still  with  the  Landwehr.  As  for 
the  others.  .  .  ." 

A  shrug  completed  her  meaning. 

The  necessity  for  these  precautions  was  at  times  humiliat- 
ing; but,  at  that  period,  the  caste  system,  more  rigid  in 
Vienna  than  in  any  other  city  of  Europe,  made  a  man-ser- 
vant hardly  a  man,  and  a  woman  a  scarce  emancipated 
slave. 

"Go!  "she  entreated.     "Go!" 


CHAPTER  VIII 
NAPOLEON'S  DREAM 


IT  was  past  midnight. 
Not  a  breath  stirred  the  trees  in  the  gardens  behind 
Schonbrunn.  The  palace  was  in  darkness.  In  front,  to- 
wards the  left,  the  woods  rose  in  black  and  winding  masses, 
motionless,  profound.  In  the  huge  square  a  fountain  flung 
up  the  ghostly  pallor  of  its  waters,  and  even  that  fretful 
sound,  though  low,  appeared  an  intrusion  in  the  stupendous 
silence.  The  bivouac  fires  which  twinkled  at  irregular  in- 
tervals north,  east,  south,  and  west,  burned  fitfully  as  dis- 
tant sinking  tapers,  and,  like  the  fountain,  made  intenser 
this  impression  of  the  intrusiveness  and  transitoriness  of 
any  motion,  of  any  life. 

Universal  nature  seemed  entombed  in  her  own  first 
thought. 

Motionlessness,  darkness,  silence,  immensity — and  away 
to  the  eastward  the  glimmering  flats  of  the  Marchfeld, 
where,  amid  the  ruins  of  Austrian  villages  and  homesteads, 
the  dust  of  those  who  had  fallen  at  Aspern  mingled  with  the 
dust  of  those  who,  centuries  ago,  fell  with  Ottocar  and  with 
Rudolf,  with  Kara  Mustapha  and  Stahrenberg. 

Seven  or  eight  guests  had  dined  with  Napoleon.  The 
murderous  attempt  of  that  morning  was  by  tacit  consent 
ignored.  The  Emperor  was  silent  and  preoccupied.  Now 

217 


218  Schonbrunn 

and  then,  as  a  mark  of  regret  or  reconciliation,  he  pressed  a 
dish  upon  the  Prince  de  Neuchatel.  Once  the  conversation 
fell  on  the  incidents  of  the  ride  and  on  the  encounter  with  the 
two  Greek  priests.  Rousing  himself,  the  Emperor  con- 
demned the  Austrian  recruiting  system,  which,  with  a  blunt 
astuteness  "thoroughly  Austrian, "  tore  the  blacksmith  and 
the  carpenter  rather  than  the  ploughman  and  the  labourer 
from  village  and  town.  "And  the  folly  of  it!  A  Black- 
smith can  till  a  field  or  hold  a  plough  but  no  labourer  can 
at  once  replace  the  carpenter  at  his  bench  or  the  blacksmith 
at  his  forge. "  On  the  other  hand,  he  praised  the  Austrian 
soldiers — "the  best  in  the  world  if  they  had  leaders." 
Rapp,  with  a  touch  of  the  bluff  frankness  which  had  ruined 
his  advancement,  observed  that  the  Emperor  had  already 
said  this  of  the  Russians. 

"You  are  always  thinking  of  the  Russians,"  Napoleon 
said  tartly.  "You  have  never  forgotten  Austerlitz  and  the 
Prince  Repnin. " 

No  courier  had  arrived  from  Totis.  Champagny  in 
Vienna  was  still  closeted  with  Liechtenstein;  and  as  the 
evening  proceeded  the  Emperor's  uneasiness  and  irritability 
increased,  and  his  uneasiness  communicated  itself  to  his 
immediate  entourage  and  in  some  inscrutable  way  to  the 
entire  household.  Men  who  remembered  the  infernal  ma- 
chine and  the  conspiracy  of  Cadoudal  averred  that  in  those 
days  Napoleon  had  been  calmer  in 'a  much  more  trying 
ordeal. 

"Not  one  of  us  is  the  man  he  was  before  this  accursed 
campaign,"  Hulin  said  that  evening  to  Rapp.  "Where  is 
it  to  end,  and  how?  Every  bayonet  with  a  point  is  beyond 
the  Pyrenees.  We  have  had  to  fight  this  entire  campaign 
with  the  guns.  And  Spain  is  Hell.  Death,  disease  or  cap- 
ture is  the  choice,  and  always  in  the  end — death."  And 
continuing  with  a  touch  of  Rousseauism  common  in  the 
Republican  and  Napoleonic  armies, — "We  are  hated  in 


Napoleon's  Dream  219 

Vienna.  Andre*ossy  admits  it.  And  we  are  hated  in  Ger- 
many, and  in  Europe.  What  an  unhappy  fate  for  France! 
Yesterday  the  Christ  of  nations;  to-day  the  Judas;  yester- 
day the  world's  forlorn  hope;  to-day  the  world's  execration. 
You  are  a  Frenchman  as  I  am,  Rapp.  Was  it  for  this  the 
Girondins  walked  to  the  Scaffold  like  hero-martyrs?  Was 
it  for  this  we  fought  Valmy  and  Jemappes?" 

At  about  half  past  eight  before  setting  out  for  the  Schloss 
Theatre,  Napoleon  had  again  sent  for  Corvisart  and  for 
Savary  and  questioned  them  separately  and  in  private  upon 
their  visits  to  the  young  Thuringian. 

"I  have  broached  many  subjects  with  him,"  Corvisart 
assured  the  Emperor,  "but  I  can  find  no  grounds  for  de- 
claring him  insane.  He  seems  a  lad  of  unusual  culture  and 
earnestness.  Upon  every  subject  except  one  he  converses 
most  reasonably." 

"And  that  is?" 

"His  divine  mission  to  kill  yourself,  Sire." 

Napoleon  looked  intently  at  the  shrewd  grey  features  of 
his  physician.  But  again  they  betrayed  nothing. 

With  Savary  the  interview  had  lasted  longer. 

Rough-mannered  to  his  equals,  overbearing  or  churlishly 
condescending  to  his  inferiors,  taciturn  in  general  society, 
unable,  it  was  said,  to  forget  even  in  the  most  brilliant 
assembly  the  haunting  eyes  of  his  victims,  the  Due  de  Ro- 
vigo  was,  in  his  master's  presence,  invariably  awkward,  too 
brusque  or  too  subservient,  using,  or  omitting  to  use,  the 
words  "Sire"  and  "Majesty"  with  the  maladroitness  of  a 
man  afraid  of  being  suspected  of  republicanism,  yet  deter- 
mined not  to  set  an  example  of  cringing. 

"  Does  the  assassin  express  no  sorrow  at  leaving  his  family, 
his  friends,  his  sweetheart  for  ever?  None  for  his  own  fate? " 
Napoleon  had  enquired  in  a  detached  indifferent  tone. 

"He  repents  of  nothing,  regrets  nothing,"  had  been  the 
sullen  answer. 


220  Schonbrunn 

"He  is  young  to  die." 

"He  is  old  in  his  readiness,  Sire." 

"Yes,  yes.  I  know  these  hotheads.  A  fast  will  tame  his 
spirit  and  bring  him  to  his  senses.  Give  him  nothing  for 
twenty-four  hours." 

"Sire,  he  refuses  to  eat. " 

"How?     What  do  you  say?" 

"Your  Majesty,  he  refuses  most  constantly,  alleging 
that  he  has  eaten  enough  before  he  dies." 

"It  is  a  Roman  answer, "  Napoleon  exclaimed  after  some 
seconds'  meditation;  and  with  the  word  this  interview  too 
had  terminated.  Attended  by  his  suite,  the  Emperor  had 
then  started  for  the  theatre. 

The  piece,  set  up  by  Denon  at  the  last  moment,  was  Zin- 
garelli's  Romeo  and  Juliet.  Originally,  to  celebrate  the 
peace  that  it  was  confidently  expected  would  be  signed  that 
morning,  the  Emperor  had  selected  his  old  favourite,  The 
Triumph  of  Trajan,  and  Luce  de  Lanival's  new  piece,  The 
Death  of  Hector,  which,  though  ridiculed  as  "a  head- 
quarters drama,"  he  had  himself  rewarded,  on  its  first 
representation  ten  months  ago,  by  a  pension  of  ten  thou- 
sand livres.  But  the  protracted  negotiations  had  now 
made  both  pieces  appear  inopportune;  and  after  rejecting 
all  Denon's  suggestions  Napoleon  had  at  last  consented 
to  permit  a  Piedmontese  singer  recommended  by  Eugene 
Beauharnais,  the  Viceroy  of  Italy,  to  appear  before  him  as 
Romeo. 

When  the  curtain  rose  the  Emperor  had  called  Berthier's 
attention  to  the  small  number  of  Viennese  present. 

"Are  they  in  hiding?  Or  are  they  preparing  another 
coup,  since  the  Thuringian's  has  failed?" 

"No,"  the  Prince  de  NeucMtel  had  answered.  "It  is 
only  the  changed  bill.  The  Viennese  are  exigent.  They 
cannot  endure  a  debutant  in  a  familiar  piece. " 

The  young  tenor,  excited  by  the  presence  of  Napoleon  and 


Napoleon's  Dream  221 

his  staff,  had  sung  the  part  as  though  he  were  never  to  sing 
again.  Napoleon,  though  bored  at  first  and  apparently 
asleep,  had  gradually  begun  to  listen  with  a  kind  of  painful 
attention.  Romeo's  slim  figure  recalled  Friedrich  Staps's; 
his  voice  in  the  duel  with  Tybalt  had  the  same  angry  pathos 
and  the  same  ringing  energy ;  death  was  in  that  voice,  death 
yet  unconquerable  will.  The  famous  lament  by  the  tomb  of 
Juliet,  one  of  Zingarelli's  few  inspirations,  had  moved  him. 
Had  not  a  miniature  been  found  on  the  youthful  assassin? 
Had  not  he  too  a  mistress? 

On  his  return  from  the  theatre  the  Emperor  had  worked 
for  an  hour  and  a  half  with  MeneVal,  dictating  along  with 
other  letters  a  private  despatch,  to  start  before  midnight, 
to  Pouche",  his  minister  of  Police  at  Paris.  It  was  the  letter 
in  which,  after  altering  the  date  from  the  i$th  to  the  I2th 
October,  he  insinuates  Staps's  madness,  but  in  a  postscript 
as  well  as  in  the  letter  itself  charges  Fouch£  with  the  utmost 
secrecy.  An  article  in  the  Moniieur  which  gave  an  account 
of  the  parade  on  the  I3th  was  framed  upon  the  instructions 
that  filled  the  remainder  of  the  letter.  The  Emperor  in  that 
article  was  said  to  be  in  exceptional  health ;  his  long  ride  was 
described  and  his  conversation  with  the  two  Greek  priests 
narrated  at  length.  The  article  was  in  the  Due  d'Otrante's 
best  style.  It  concluded: 

"  May  all  Frenchmen  take  advantage  of  the  wisdom  of  our 
gracious  sovereign  who,  amid  the  dangers  of  a  campaign, 
has  leisure  to  direct  his  mighty  mind  to  the  tobacco  plan- 
tations of  England  and  the  potato-cultivation  of  Lower 
Austria." 

If  Staps  had  hoped  by  the  price  of  his  own  blood  to 
purchase  a  glory  like  that  of  a  Brutus  or  a  Charlotte 
Corday  he  would,  Napoleon  had  resolved,  be  most  cruelly 
undeceived. 

One  of  Napoleon's  swiftest  couriers  had  started  with  this 
letter  at  about  eleven. 


222  Schonbrunn 


ii 

Midnight  had  struck  before  Napoleon  dismissed  his  secre- 
tary and  retired. 

Alone  in  his  room  a  reaction,  sudden  as  that  which  as- 
sailed him  on  the  night  of  Ebersdorf,  at  once  set  in,  and, 
shattered  as  his  nerves  were  by  the  events  of  the  afternoon, 
he  had  the  less  power  to  resist  the  onset.  He  was  irritated 
and  astonished,  for  on  retiring  he  had  had  no  thought  but  of 
sleep.  He  had  been  accustomed  to  treat  sleep  as  if  it  were 
one  of  his  aides-de-camp,  ready  to  obey  orders;  and  sleep 
had  been  a  faithful  satellite.  On  the  6th  of  July,  at  the  bat- 
tle of  Wagram,  Rustum  had  spread  a  bearskin  on  the  ground 
and  he  had  snatched  seventeen  minutes  profound  slumber, 
and  risen  with  a  joyous  exultancy  to  give  the  order  for 
Macdonald's  stupendous  charge. 

"To-night — why  the  devil  cannot  I  sleep  to-night?  Ah, 
Liechtenstein,  and  no  answer  from  Totis,  and  it  is  nine 
hours  since  Nicas  started. " 

Instead  of  undressing,  he  flung  himself  down  on  a  sofa 
and  began  to  think. 

"The  ambassadors  will  find  me  with  my  boots  on,"  he 
reflected  grimly,  and  a  momentary  appeasement  swept  over 
him. 

The  room,  decorated  in  white  and  gold  and  pale  blue,  was, 
except  the  adjoining  cabinet,  the  only  room  in  Schonbrunn 
which  had  a  fireplace.  The  others  were  heated  with  the 
unsightly  stoves  universal  in  Austria.  A  small  table  had 
been  placed  beside  the  sofa  where  Napoleon  sat,  and  at 
intervals  he  tapped  on  it  with  his  fingers,  nervously,  yet  in 
rhythm,  in  a  kind  of  tune. 

But  suddenly  he  got  up,  and  with  his  hands  behind  his 
back  and  his  head  sunk  between  his  powerful  shoulders  be- 
gan to  walk  up  and  down.  He  wore  the  same  coat  that  he 
had  worn  in  the  afternoon,  but,  instead  of  the  star,  the  red 


Napoleon's  Dream  223 

ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  He  seemed  lost  in  thought 
yet  every  now  and  then  he  stopped  and  looked  at  some  ob- 
ject in  the  room,  now  at  a  medallion  portrait  of  Maria 
Theresa,  now  at  a  pastoral  in  the  style  of  Fragonard,  now 
at  a  portrait  of  the  Duke  of  Lorraine,  Maria  Theresa's  big, 
honest,  good-natured,  stupid  consort,  and  close  to  it  the 
ironic  countenance  of  Maximilian  in  Durer's  marvellous 
sketch;  now  at  other  pictures,  or  at  other  ornaments  of 
elegance  or  price. 

"It  is  the  Tugendbund, "  he  muttered  brusquely. 

The  words  expressed  the  net  product  of  his  aimless  prowl- 
ings  about  the  room.  For  everything  that  he  had  ascer- 
tained from  Savary  or  from  Corvisart  of  the  young  fanatic's 
history — his  birth,  his  education,  his  ambitions,  and  the 
scenes  amid  which  he  had  lived — went  to  confirm  this  one 
theory  beyond  all  the  others  that  had  hovered  before 
Napoleon's  imagination  during  the  interrogatory  of  that 
afternoon.  It  was  the  Konigsberg  patriots,  not  the  Jesuits, 
who  this  time  had  placed  a  dagger  in  the  hands  of  this 
youthful  Ravaillac. 

Always  profoundly  interested  in  history  and  in  the  effects 
of  the  past  upon  the  present,  Napoleon  had  listened  atten- 
tively amidst  his  pomp  and  festivities  at  Erfurt  to  the 
legends  and  facts  of  the  region  around.  Thuringia  was  a 
coagulated  mass  of  German  legend  and  German  sentiment. 

"How  practical!"  he  exclaimed,  fired  into  admiration  of 
an  enemy.  "How  possible!" 

For  here  in  this  Bond  of  Valour  and  sentiment  of  nation- 
ality was  the  authentic  antagonist  of  his  own  world-policy. 
He  strove  to  disintegrate  nationality  where  it  was  strongest 
in  Germany — in  Prussia,  for  instance,  in  Suabia,  in  the 
Rhine  country  and  by  the  Elbe.  The  Tugendbund,  on  the 
other  hand,  by  its  appeals  to  the  heroic  past,  to  Charle- 
magne and  Arminius,  to  the  Ottonides  and  the  Hohenstau- 
fen,  to  Maximilian,  to  Luther,  even  to  Wallenstein  and  to 


224  Schonbrunn 

Frederick,  strove  to  create  national  sentiment  where  no 
national  sentiment  existed;  to  transform  local  patriotism 
mto  German  patriotism  by  violent  and  instant  action  cal- 
culated to  strike  the  imagination,  such  as  that  of  Schill, 
Brunswick,  Katt,  and  recently  that  of  the  Tyrolese. 

"Brunswick  and  Schill  have  failed;  I  have  the  Tyrolese 
in  my  grip,"  Napoleon  reasoned,  "but  now  the  patriots 
play  a  more  desperate  card.  Do  they  seek  in  their  madness 
to  give  their  cause  a  martyr?  I  will  baulk  them. " 

Nevertheless  he  did  not  see  very  clearly  how  this  "baulk- 
ing" was  to  be  done.  Staps's  retort,  blurred  at  the  time  by 
Bonaparte's  preconceptions  about  England,  stood  out  in 
menacing  significance, — "If  I  fall,  there  are  ten  thousand 
behind  me  to  take  my  place." 

The  history  of  Corsica  is  the  history  of  conspiracies,  and 
the  theory  that  Staps  had  acted  alone,  that  his  appeal  to 
those  behind  him  might  merely  spring  from  the  boy's  faith 
that  the  ardour  of  others  was  like  his  own  ardour,  Napoleon 
did  not  consider  worth  investigation. 

"No;  it  is  the  Tugendbund." 

An  incident  of  the  preceding  winter  now  occurred  to 
Napoleon  in  corroboration  of  his  own  hypothesis. 

"Why  has  a  Jena  succeeded  a  Rossbach?"  ran  one  of  the 
pamphlets  which  in  November  Fouche  had  placed  under  his 
eyes  just  as  he  was  about  to  start  for  Spain.  "Because  the 
army  of  Frederick  has  ceased  to  be  a  national  army.  French 
patriotism  can  only  be  vanquished  by  German  patriotism. 
When  we  speak  of  love  of  country  we  must  once  more 
accustom  ourselves  to  the  ideas  of  sacrifices  and  of  death." 

And  the  pamphlet  had  proceeded  to  comment  indignantly 
on  the  decay  of  German  national  sentiment.  It  derided 
the  cosmopolitanism  of  which  German  writers  boasted. 
Against  the  famous  "cosmopolitans,"  Lessing,  Herder, 
Jacobi,  and  Goethe,  it  quoted  from  their  own  writings  the 
most  dishonouring  and  dishonourable  maxims,  such  as, — 


Napoleon's  Dream  225 

"Of  all  forms  of  pride  national  pride  is  the  most  absurd." 
Alcibiades'  cynical  apologia  had,  it  alleged,  been  cited  with 
approbation  by  Lessing,  —  "That  is  my  country  where  it  is 
well  with  me."  Euripides's  nobler  sentiment,  lauded  by 
Jacobi,  was  also  held  up  to  mockery,  — 


S.TTO.S  fjxv  aijj  a-itrtf  irepa<ri/«>s 
aTracra  5e  yQuv  avdpi  yevvattp  irarat 

"To  the  eagle  the  universal  air  is  open; 
And  to  the  freeman,  the  universal  earth." 

The  pamphlet  had  concluded  with  a  virulent  diatribe  against 
Napoleon  in  person,  —  "The  betrayer  of  the  princes  in  the 
Confederation  of  the  Rhine,  the  betrayer  of  Prussia;  but, 
indeed,  whom  has  Napoleon  not  betrayed?  What  pledge 
the  most  solemn  did  the  Consul  Bonaparte  not  violate? 
What  promise  the  most  sacred  has  the  Emperor  Napoleon 
ever  fulfilled?  Sardinia,  Venice,  Rome,  Spain,  victims  in 
turn  of  his  black  treachery  —  these  are  the  witnesses,  these 
are  the  accusers!  In  France  itself  Bonaparte  has  sworn 
fidelity  to  every  constitution  and  broken  every  oath  thus 
sworn.  He  has  conspired  against  every  constitution  of  his 
country  in  turn  and  now  conspires  against  the  human  race 
itself,  and,  hell  in  his  heart  and  chaos  in  his  head,  he  rushes 
on  blindly  to  his  own  destruction  or  the  havoc  of  a  world. 

Distrusting  Fouche,  Napoleon  had  caused  an  independent 
translation  to  be  made;  he  had  discovered  in  Fouche"'s 
version  several  discrepancies.  Nothing  had  been  inserted, 
nothing  omitted,  but  several  phrases  in  the  paragraphs 
against  himself  had  been  envenomed.  Here  a  word  had 
been  transferred,  there  point  had  been  given  to  an  epithet 
and  epigrammatic  force  to  the  straggling  German  periods 
of  the  original.  This  he  attributed  to  Talleyrand,  for 
Fouche"'s  own  style  was  cloudy  and  prolix. 

In  Germany,  the  response  to  the  fiery  summons  had  been 
instantaneous.  The  thrill,  the  expectancy  of  a  new  life,  a 
is 


226  Schonbrunn 

new  future,  had  passed  from  end  to  end  of  the  Fatherland. 
The  old,  the  young,  all  that  was  free,  all  that  was  noble,  had 
uprisen  around  Schill  or  followed  his  enterprise  with  beating 
hearts.  Women  had  caught  the  infection.  At  Magdeburg 
they  had  exchanged  their  trinkets  of  gold  and  silver  for 
those  of  iron  and  steel.  Amongst  the  dead  after  Schill 's 
last  stand  lay  a  young  trooper;  but  when  the  helmet  was 
removed  a  mass  of  tresses  had  rolled  out  covering  the  dead 
warrior's  shoulders.  It  was  a  woman.  The  centuries  were 
grey,  but  in  1809,  when  all  literary  Germany  was  studying 
the  recently  discovered  Nibelungenlied,  the  heroines  of  Ari- 
osto  and  Tasso  were  being  imitated  beside  the  Elbe. 

Such  was  the  pamphlet,  such  the  ideas,  the  memories, 
the  voices  that  to-night  at  Schonbrunn  in  the  palace  of  the 
Habsburgs  assailed  Napoleon ;  and  as  the  testimony  of  their 
import,  the  dagger  of  that  morning  lay  in  a  cabinet  against 
the  wall. 

"Restoration  of  religion?"  he  reflected  savagely.  "The 
league  of  virtue  ...  a  nation's  bond  of  valour  .  .  . 
by  my  murder?  En  verite,  a  nation  of  ideologues,  madmen, 
and  dreamers,  these  Germans!"  And  half  aloud  in  his 
excitement  he  cried,  "If  Davout  had  but  caught  Stein  at 
Brunn!  But,  general  or  marshal,  they  are  always  late." 

At  Brunn,  sixty  miles  north  of  Vienna,  the  great  exile, 
crossing  the  snowy  ravines  of  the  Riesengebirge  in  a  sledge 
in  the  wintry  darkness,  had  in  the  beginning  of  the  year, 
found  refuge.  There,  in  frequent  communication  with 
Stadion  and  the  Emperor  Francis,  he  had  lived  during  the 
campaign  so  fatal  to  Austria  and  to  the  nascent  hopes  of 
German  patriotism  and  German  nationality.  In  July,  the 
Third  Corps  under  Davout  was  on  him;  but,  warned  of 
danger,  the  exile  had  escaped  to  Troppau  just  in  time ;  for 
had  Davout  found  him  at  Brxinn  his  fate  would  have  been 
the  fate  of  Schill  and  of  Palm. 

But  Napoleon  never  wasted  mind-force  upon  what  might 


Napoleon's  Dream  227 

have  been.  The  "is"  was  absorbing  enough.  He  stopped 
by  a  window,  and  stood  staring  into  the  blackness.  The 
panes,  backed  by  the  inky  darkness  of  the  moonless  night, 
reflected  his  own  face  like  a  mirror  of  polished  ebony. 

"To-morrow  it  is  peace  or  war,  and  to-morrow  is  already 
to-day. " 

With  lightning  rapidity  he  ran  over  in  imagination  the 
armies  at  his  command — at  Gratz,  Linz,  Brunn,  around 
Vienna  itself,  and  in  his  rear,  stretching  from  the  mouth  of 
the  Scheldt  to  the  headwaters  of  the  Danube  and  the  Rhine. 

"They  date  my  greatness  from  Toulon.  Bah,  I  have  to 
recommence  my  fate  every  hour.  Every  day  is  with  me  an 
1 8th  Brumaire.  But  I  shall  set  out  for  Paris  to-morrow 
night." 

He  yawned;  he  felt  sleep  invading  him  now;  but  instead  of 
undressing,  he  once  more  threw  himself  on  the  sofa. 

A  singular  lucidity  was  all  about  his  mind.  The  body 
seemed  to  rest  only  to  permit  the  intellect  to  perform  its 
functions  the  more  perfectly.  He  did  not  close  his  eyes, 
knowing  from  experience  how  useless  in  such  moments  of 
insomnia  that  device  had  proved.  Annoyed  at  last  by  the 
light  in  the  room,  he  got  up  and  walked  rapidly  to  the  door. 
Rustum  was  on  guard,  but  sound  asleep.  Napoleon  looked  at 
the  round  fat  features  of  the  Mameluke.  They  had  a  cer- 
tain resemblance  to  his  own  as  seen  in  the  hollow  of  a  spoon, 
and  expressed  so  thorough  a  self-content  that  it  became  con- 
tagious and  he  smiled. 

"Yet  what  a  life  has  been  Rustum's.  Well-born,  yet  a 
slave  since  childhood;  his  mother,  his  sisters,  made  slaves 
also  by  the  same  evil  chance — there  he  lies,  the  happiest  man, 
the  soundest  sleeper  in  my  army,  enjoying  everything,  dis- 
turbed by  nothing. " 

He  dropped  the  portiere,  and  attempted  himself  to  reach 
the  candelabra.  It  was  too  high  for  his  short  legs,  but  get- 
ting on  a  chair  he  blew  out  three  of  the  lights,  leaving  only 


228  Sch6nbrunn 

one  burning.  As  he  got  down  the  branch  of  the  candelabra 
by  which  he  had  steadied  himself  snapped  in  his  hand. 

Napoleon  nearly  lost  his  balance  and  might  have  had  a 
bad  fall.  Enraged  at  the  contretemps,  he  was  about  to 
smash  the  candelabra;  but  he  turned  away  with  a  shrug. 

"False,"  he  muttered,  "a  sham,  like  everything  else  in 
Vienna  and  like  everything  else  in  Germany — sham  patriot- 
ism, sham  agriculture,  sham  fortifications." 

The  bedroom  had  in  the  preceding  summer  been  occupied 
by  one  of  the  archduchesses,  and  had  been  refurnished  in 
the  French  style,  but  instead  of  the  real  bronzes  of  Versailles 
an  imitation  inwood  had  been  substituted,  to  save  expense 
and  perhaps- also  to  encourage  the  Viennese  world  by  royal 
example  to  patronize  the  Tyrol,  where  the  peasants  of  the 
Grunerwald  manufactured  those  imitations  with  amazing 
skill  from  the  wood  of  the  Siberian  pine,  a  tree  that  grows 
only  on  the  edge  of  the  glacier. 

The  accident  gave  a  new  direction  to  Napoleon's  thoughts. 
The  owner  of  four  magnificent  and  richly  upholstered  pal- 
aces, full  of  priceless  works  of  art,  the  plunder  of  three 
nations,  he  experienced  for  this  grandiose  poverty  of  Schon- 
brunn  a  plutocratic  contempt  almost  like  that  of  a  wealthy 
visitor  who  has  broken  a  gim-crack  ornament  in  a  sea-side 
lodging.  The  rooms  were  multitudinous  but  small;  the 
rococo  and  Chinese  decorations  faded;  the  pictures  bad;  and 
then,  the  incredible  barbarity  of  those  statues  used  to  heat 
the  grand  staircase ! 

"It  is  I,  the  successor  of  Charlemagne,  it  is  I  who  have  to 
show  even  kings  how  to  be  kings,  and  emperors  how  to  keep 
house." 

But  to-night  he  could  not  keep  up  his  blague.  To-night 
Schonbrunn  seemed  haunted.  The  very  name  "  The  Gru- 
nerwald "  had  an  ominous  sound.  There  in  February  last  a 
French  division  under  Lefebvre  had  laid  down  its  arms  to  the 
Tyrolese.  And  now  in  the  stillness  of  this  dreary  hour  he 


Napoleon's  Dream  229 

seemed  to  hear  voices  about  him  and  the  sound  as  of  ghostly 
laughter.  He  could  distinguish  the  very  voices — Met- 
ternich,  Bubna,  Schwartzenberg,  Liechtenstein,  Stadion, 
Francis  himself: 

"Bonaparte  the  successor  of  Charlemagne?  Ha!  Ha! 
Ha!  Bonaparte  to  instruct  the  Habsburg  princes  in  elegance! 
Bonaparte!  Ha!  Ha!  Ha!" 

It  was  fancy,  but  it  was  a  singular  and  disconcerting 
fancy,  for  it  compelled  him,  here  in  the  palace  of  the  Habs- 
burgs,  to  remember  the  line  of  provincial  attorneys  or 
poverty-stricken  officials  from  whom  he  himself  was  sprung. 

"  Men  are  ruled  by  toys !  I  would  not  say  that  before  the 
mob,  but  in  a  council  of  wise  men  one  may  speak  the  truth." 

It  was  his  own  voice  speaking  in  the  Council,  defending 
his  creation  of  dues,  comtes,  peers,  the  Legion  of  Honour — 
and  the  memory  tranquillized  him. 

"Bah, "  he  reflected,  "if  birth  gave  men  brains  or  women 
beauty  .  .  .  but  though  the  Habsburgs  are  fertile  as 
rabbits,  they  have  produced  in  three  hundred  years  only 
one  woman  of  sovereign  beauty  and  only  two  men  above 
mediocrity — Charles  V.  and  the  Archduke,  my  rival." 

He  stretched  himself  on  the  sofa,  and  putting  one  foot 
on  a  brocaded  chair  of  grey  and  gold,  he  closed  his  eyes  and 
deliberately  composed  himself  to  sleep. 

The  fire  was  sinking.  The  ashes  of  the  huge  log  rustled. 
The  unburnt  remainder  would  smoulder  on  for  an  hour  or 
two,  he  thought,  and  of  their  own  accord  his  eyes  now 
closed.  In  his  favourite  phrase,  "he  had  shut  all  the 
drawers  of  the  cabinet  of  his  thoughts. " 

Nevertheless,  he  was  conscious  of  the  tremendous  silence 
and  of  the  objects  in  the  room,  amid  which  the  high-bred 
ironic  features  of  the  great  Maximilian  loomed  portentous. 
Once  he  opened  his  eyes,  but  with  a  frown  that  left  a  fold 
above  his  eyebrows,  he  instantly  closed  them  again. 

It  was  sleep  at  last,  profound,  dreamless  as  the  sleep  that 


230  Schonbrunn 

he  had  known  amid  the  cannonade  of  Wagram.  He  lost 
all  .sense  of  time.  Hours  might  have  passed  or  days  or 
merely  seconds. 

in 

All  at  once  he  was  wide  awake,  or  seemed  to  be  awake — 
and  it  was  a  ghastly  awakening.  His  heart  was  beating 
faintly  as  though  each  throb  were  to  be  its  last,  and  from 
head  to  foot  he  felt  torpid,  icy  cold,  and  oppressed  by  an 
immense  dread. 

Yet  for  several  seconds  he  did  not  stir,  endeavouring  to 
find  the  causes  of  these  sensations.  Had  he  eaten  to  ex- 
cess? He  had  eaten  his  usual  dinner,  drunk  the  single 
glass  of  wine  that  he  permitted  himself  daily,  and  to  conquer 
his  fatigue  before  setting  out  for  the  theatre  he  had  drunk 
a  cup  of  coffee. 

"Ah,  it  is  that  seizure  this  afternoon — tha  same  effects 
as  in  August";  he  concluded.  "I  might  have  anticipated 
this. " 

He  struggled  to  get  up,  but  almost  instantly  an  exclama- 
tion of  surprise  escaped  him.  Right  in  front  between  him 
and  the  wall  to  the  right  of  the  fireplace,  though  he  could  not 
explain  how  a  human  body  could  stand  thus  and  stand  there, 
he  saw  the  figure  of  a  boy,  blonde-haired  and  blue-eyed, 
with  a  face  of  great  softness  and  charm.  It  was  his  would- 
be  assassin,  Friedrich  Staps,  now  sleeping  his  last  sleep, 
if  he  slept,  in  the  Leopold  Bastion  hard  by  the  arsenal. 
Napoleon  surveyed  his  visitor  with  curiosity,  attracted,  as 
always,  by  intrepedity. 

"For  what  has  he  come  here?" 

He  felt  none  of  the  horror,  at  least  consciously,  that  Staps 
had  evoked  in  him  that  afternoon. 

But  a  second  visitor  now  stood  beside  the  first — not  less 
boyish  in  appearance,  and  dressed  in  much  the  same  fashion ; 
but  in  every  other  respect  widely  different;  for  this  was  a 


Napoleon's  Dream  231 

dark-complexioned  youth,  the  face  a  long  oval,  the  eye  dis- 
turbing in  its  restless  hawk-like  scrutiny,  the  figure  erect, 
and  face  and  figure  alike  fascinating  and  troubling  in  the 
extreme. 

As  the  two  boys,  their  hands  clasped  in  friendship,  thus 
stood  confronting  him,  Napoleon's  attention  fixed  itself 
upon  the  second. 

"Tiens!"  he  said  suddenly.  "How  curious!  It  is  my- 
self— as  I  was,  long  ago.  What  the  devil  am  I  doing  here? " 

It  was  grotesquely  impossible. 

But  in  an  instant  he  was  in  Corsica.  It  was  summer. 
The  exquisite  fragrance  of  the  wild  flowers,  abundant  in  the 
valleys  and  even  in  the  gorges,  was  all  about  him,  a  fra- 
grance he  had  never  forgotten  and  on  Sainte  He*lene  was 
still  to  remember. 

"  Ah,  I  recollect.  Stay  a  moment, ' '  he  said  to  his  visitors. 
"We  should  understand  each  other — stay." 

He  walked  rapidly  to  an  escritoire  and  unlocking  a  drawer, 
then  a  secret  inner  drawer,  took  out  a  small  thin  book.  In 
places  it  was  interleaved.  The  margins  also  were  covered 
with  his  own  handwriting,  a  very  marked  but  still  legible 
hand,  with  rapid  and  frequent  changes,  as  though  it  varied 
with  the  tension  or  relaxation  of  his  mind.  He  turned  the 
pages  hurriedly  and  stopped  at  the  following  words: 

"What  a  frightful  hour  is  this  in  my  country's  history! 
A  nation  of  twenty-five  millions  pours  itself  in  a  torrent  of 
ruin  on  its  smiling  shores.  France!  Woe  to  thee,  France, 
thou  nation  of  slaves  and  despots!  Ah,  if  the  oppressors  of 
my  land  had  but  one  breast,  with  what  joy,  with  what  ar- 
dour would  not  I  plunge  my  dagger  into  that  bosom.  ..." 

Yes,  he  himself,  he  himself  at  eighteen,  exactly  as  he  now 
stood  there  hand  in  hand  with  Friedrich  Staps,  he  had  writ- 
ten those  words,  and  in  every  tingling  nerve  he  had  felt  the 
resolution  which  still  burned  in  those  words. 

He  turned  joyously  to  the  two  figures ;  the  dazzling  wine 


232  Schdnbrunn 

of  youth  and  the  fervour  of  his  own  heroic  enthusiasms  leapt 
and  glowed  in  his  veins. 

"What?  It  is  for  this  you  have  come?  I  remember! 
That  dream  of  liberty!  A  dead  tyrant  is  the  noblest  sacri- 
fice we  can  offer  to  the  gods!  Let  us  sit  down  and  talk 
together,  you  and  I.  Soyons  amis,  Cinna!" 

In  the  bizarre  chaos  of  a  dream  Bonaparte  had  mixed  his 
manhood's  favourite  passage  from  Corneille  with  his  naive 
delight  at  meeting  his  own  boyhood  again.  And  embracing 
in  his  invitation  the  Habsburg  portraits  on  the  wall : 

"Tyrants  and  tyrannicides,  let  us  sit  and  confer  together." 

But  as  if  in  anger  at  this  levity,  or  as  if  their  mission  were 
fulfilled,  the  two  spectral  visitants  seemed  to  recede  and 
to  dissolve  before  his  eyes,  and  in  a  second  a  kind  of  spectral 
light  alone  was  left  to  betray  where  they  had  stood. 

A  profound  dejection  seized  Napoleon;  and  with  a  sicken- 
ing presage  about  the  heart  he  turned  to  the  pages  in  his 
hand  and  not  in  joy  now  but  like  one  who  longs  yet  fears  to 
disturb  the  sanctuaried  majesty  of  death,  he  read  on.  And 
on  an  interleaved  fragment  the  words  sprang  up  before  him, 
— "Man,  0  man,  enslaved  howthou  art  degraded;  but  how 
noble  when  fired  by  the  ardour  for  freedom!  Forgive  me, 
forgive  me,  O  God,  but  everywhere  on  this  earth  suffering 
and  sorrow  are  the  lot  of  the  just  man ;  yet  the  just  man  is 
Thy  image. " 

It  was  his  prayer  at  nineteen,  his,  there  in  Corsica,  there 
in  his  native  land,  not  twenty  years  ago.  To-night  that 
same  prayer  must  have  been  this  young  Thuringian's 
before  he  stretched  himself  on  his  plank  bed  for  his  last 
sleep.  And  on  the  same  page,  aureoled  in  glory  as  he  him- 
self had  written  them  then  and  as  his  prisoner  had  spoken 
them  that  afternoon,  he  saw  the  names  of  Tell,  Brutus, 
Miltiades,  Regulus. 

"Prodigious  contradiction!  Then  and  now!  What  a 
tragedy! "  he  said,  without  knowing  exactly  what  he  meant. 


Napoleon's  Dream  233 

And  swift  as  falling  leaves  other  passages  in  his  own 
hand-writing  confronted  him — portraits  of  tyrants  side 
by  side  with  portraits  of  traitors.  Now  it  was  his  terrible 
denunciation  of  Buttafuoco,  the  betrayer  of  Paoli.  "From 
Bonifacio  to  the  Corsican  cape,  from  Ajaccio  to  Bastia, 
there  is  but  one  voice  and  that  voice  is  raised  to  curse  your 
name.  Your  friends  conceal  themselves;  your  kindred  dis- 
own you;  in  this  hour  even  the  prudent  man  is  swept  on 
headlong  in  this  torrent  of  indignation.  What  are  your 
crimes?  Let  me  unfold  them  to  you.  ..." 

The  sentences  which  followed  were  sometimes  awkward 
but  it  was  the  awkwardness  of  the  young  gerfalcon  which 
has  not  yet  felt  the  azure.  The  sentiment  was  audacious  or 
inflated,  but  its  burning  sincerity  could  not  be  questioned, 
and  Napoleon  felt  the  perspiration  burst  on  his  brow  as  he 
read  on,  and  guaged  the  emotion  raging  in  Staps  and  in 
thousands  of  young  Germans  by  the  emotion  which  had 
raged  in  himself  when  he  wrote,  "I  see  but  the  phantom 
dagger:  I  hear  in  my  sleep  but  the  tyrant's  death-cry." 

For  Corsica  substitute  Europe,  for  a  rock  flung  like  a 
torn  spear-head  far  into  the  Mediterranean  substitute  a 
continent,  and  was  not  this  the  wrath  and  hate  and 
scorn  which  he  himself  inspired  in  every  breast  still  cap- 
able of  the  love  of  country,  still  capable  of  the  love  of 
freedom? 

He  in  his  youth  must  have  been  obsessed  with  this  ardour 
and  with  this  despair.  "Will  no  one,"  ran  one  passage, 
"be  found  with  valour  enough  to  leave  his  poignard  in  the 
heart  of  the  oppressor?"  "The  gods  spare  the  tyrant," 
ran  another,  "Heaven's  lightning  does  not  smite  him,  but 
it  is  to  leave  him  to  the  sword  of  the  just  man."  "A  ty- 
rant," he  read  again,  "is  the  noblest  sacrifice  we  can  offer 
on  the  altar  of  freedom. "  And  the  portrait  of  the  tyrant 
thus  delineated  by  himself  at  eighteen  was  the  portrait  of 
himself  at  forty,  that  portrait  as  it  was  now  outlined, 


234  Schonbrunn 

clumsily  or  incisively,  in  every  pamphlet  or  brochure  of  the 
Tugendbund. 

'  Napoleon  read  no  more;  but  thrusting  aside  the  book  he 
turned  as  though  about  to  address  his  phantom  visitors; 
but  there  was  not  a  trace  of  their  presence.  Even  the 
spectral  radiance  had  vanished  and  the  only  light  in  the  room 
was  that  of  the  solitary  guttering  candle  in  the  candelabra. 

"Yes,  yes, "  he  mused.  "It  was  so.  It  was  so.  In  my 
youth  I  thought  these  things." 

A  horrible  strangling  emotion  came  over  him,  grief — the 
lost  enthusiasms  of  youth,  man's  hopes — an  emotion  that 
should  have  been  tears  but  was  only  a  sterile  attempt  at 
tears,  a  sorrow  profound,  immense,  and  tender  as  that  which 
still  invaded  him  when  in  the  distance  he  heard  in  the  twi- 
light the  bells  for  vespers  and  thought  of  Corsica. 

Suddenly  he  was  speaking  to  Josephine,  then  to  Berthier, 
then  to  Corvisart,  then  to  Duroc  in  clamorous,  earnest 
protest,  and  a  paralysing,  a  conscious  horror  had  gripped 
him  by  the  brain,  had  gripped  him  by  the  heart.  It  was  the 
terror  which  he  had  felt  after  he  had  pointed  to  the  star 
that  afternoon.  It  was  the  terror  of  madness,  and  with 
it  the  distinct  ghastly  certainty  that  if  he  remained  alone 
for  ten  seconds  longer  his  brain  would  burst  and  he  would 
drop  to  the  floor  a  gibbering  maniac. 

Decisive  always,  Napoleon,  by  a  frightful  effort  of  will, 
broke  through  his  torpor  and  stood  on  his  feet.  The  dream- 
reality  and  the  real  dream  had  alike  vanished.  He  was 
broad  awake  now,  but  his  hands  still  trembled  and  the  icy 
horror  lay  all  about  his  heart.  Rushing  to  the  portiere,  he 
stood  for  a  second  over  his  sleeping  valet. 

"  Rustum ! "  he  called  out  sharply  in  an  unnatural,  strained 
voice,  high-pitched  and  shrill.  "Rustum!" 

The  Mameluke  slept  the  sleep  of  the  camel-driver,  who  in 
Syria  can  only  be  roused  by  thumping  his  head  on  a  stone. 
And  Napoleon  raised  his  spurred  heel  as  though  to  waken 


Napoleon's  Dream  235 

him  in  that  savage  fashion,  conspicuously  kind  though  he 
always  was  to  his  servants.  The  Mameluke,  however, 
opening  his  eyes,  stood  up  smiling,  confronting  his  master. 
But  at  the  fearful  expression  on  Napoleon's  countenance 
the  smile  was  struck  dead. 

"Call  Corvisart.  No,  stay,  call — the  due  de  Friuli.  But 
light  more  candles.  Quick,  you  imbecile!  What  do  you 
stand  staring  at?" 

"Me  sleep,  your  Majesty,"  Rustum  said  in  a  frightened 
voice,  as  he  passed  with  a  taper  from  sconce  to  sconce. 

"To  whom  do  you  tell  that?  Do  I  not  know  it?  No; 
not  Corvisart.  Send  the  due  de  Friuli  here." 

He  examined  the  escritoire.  The  key  had  not  been  in  the 
lock.  He  glanced  at  the  fireplace.  The  log  had  tilted  for- 
ward a  little,  but  from  the  shape  of  the  embers  the  whole 
occurrence  could  not  have  lasted  many  minutes. 

IV 

Some  minutes  later,  when  Duroc  in  the  uniform  of  the 
cuirassiers  of  the  Guard  entered,  Napoleon  was  walking 
from  corner  to  corner  of  the  room,  now  gesticulating,  now 
muttering  to  himself,  now  taking  pinches  of  snuff  one  after 
the  other,  and  sneezing  violently  and  repeatedly. 

Duroc  was  a  good-looking  man  of  seven  and  thirty.  His 
manner  was  grave;  his  distinction  of  bearing  very  marked. 
Like  Davout,  he  sprang  from  the  noblesse;  but  the  latter, 
a  Burgundian,  affected  a  harsh  and  surly  bearing,  whilst 
an  Auvergnat,  expressed  in  his  voice  and  in  his  gestures  a 
conscious  refinement  and  polish.  But,  courtier  or  con- 
fident, Duroc  had  never  ceased  to  be  a  soldier,  and  at  this 
moment  he  looked  a  soldier  every  inch  of  him,  for  he  had 
interpreted  the  summons  as  a  summons  to  a  council  of  war, 
assembled  at  this  untimely  hour  to  deliberate  upon  Aus- 
tria's rejection  of  the  ultimatum. 


236  Schonbrunn 

The  first  glance  at  Napoleon  undeceived  him.  It  filled 
him,  however,  with  anxieties  of  another  sort;  for  his  affec- 
tion for  the  Emperor,  as  we  have  seen,  was  deep  and 
personal,  and  Corvisart  after  the  Opera  had  spoken  to  him 
in  private  of  the  seizure  of  that  afternoon  and  its  possible 
consequences. 

"The  Emperor  must  have  a  change,  and  that  quickly," 
the  physician  had  declared,  "and  he  ought  to  have  plenty 
of  sleep.  He  should  not  have  gone  to  the  theatre  to-night 
nor  worked  with  Me'ne'val  afterwards.  He  laughs  at  my 
warnings;  he  may  listen  to  you." 

And  Corvisart  had  stated  his  diagnosis  of  the  Emperor's 
condition,  using  the  terminology  of  the  period,  the  psychol- 
ogy of  Condillac  which  divides  the  body  into  separate 
temperaments — nerveux,  bilieux,  etc.;  and  the  mind  into 
separate  faculties — will,  imagination,  judgment,  feeling, 
appetites,  etc. 

"Until  now  the  Emperor's  imagination  has  been  con- 
trolled by  his  will;  but  if  once  his  imagination  throws 
off  that  will,  mighty  as  it  is — well,  you  saw  him  this 
afternoon." 

It  was,  therefore,  with  a  sickening  sense  of  alarm  that 
Duroc  found  the  Emperor  still  fully  dressed  and  evidently 
in  a  state  of  febrile  agitation.  The  cause  he  could  not 
even  surmise,  and  Napoleon  left  him  scant  leisure  for 
conjecturings. 

"I  am  making  the  world  better,"  he  said,  sweeping  Duroc 
at  once  into  the  vortex  of  his  ideas.  "I  am  making  the 
world  better,"  he  repeated,  as  though  to  drive  a  text  into 
the  mind  of  an  auditor.  "How  could  I  toil  thus,  or  live  an 
hour  of  such  a  life  as  mine,  if  I  had  not  that  belief?  Think 
of  my  work !  In  France  I  put  down  the  Terror,  the  greatest 
act  of  vengeance  and  beneficent  justice  ever  carried  out  by  a 
single  mind.  This  even  my  enemies  admit.  I  restored 
religion.  I  made  Paris  the  capital  of  a  new  civilization. 


Napoleon's  Dream  237 

adorned  her  with  magnificent  buildings,   rilled  her  with 
treasures  and  works  of  art.     Commerce  thrives,  and  after 
giving  France  the  greatest  law  system  since  Justinian's,  I 
have  this  very  year  thrown  the  Sorbonne's  lumber  of  medi- 
aevalism  into  the  dust-heap  and  given  France  the  Univer- 
sity.    But  they  complain  I  have  made  France  a  barracks, 
gagged  the  press,  and  silenced  the  tribune.     Ringed  in  by 
sleepless  hate,  mined  in  every  province  by  conspiracy,  how 
else  was  France  to  be  saved  ?     And  by  my  creation  of  a  new 
military  State  I  have  re-vitalized  the  discredited  ideas  of 
authority,  kingship,  and  empire.     Thus  I  have  saved  the 
Revolution   and   imposed   respect    upon    its    adversaries. 
And  for  Europe — what  designs  I  had,   what  plans!     In 
Spain  I  have  abolished  torture  and  put  down  the  Inquisi- 
tion, and  made  hordes  of  lazy  friars  tillers  of  the  ground. 
In  Italy  Milan  is  free  and  Florence  is  rising  from  her  ashes. 
At  Campo  Formio  I  lanced  the  abscess  of  which  Venice  was 
dying.     I  have  exterminated  the  brigands  of  the  Campagna 
and  Calabria.     I  united  Sicily  to  Naples,  its  geographical 
and  historical  complement.     But   the  Papacy?     The   Pa- 
pacy is  still  as  in  the  days  of  the  Borgias,  the  stone  thrust 
into  Italy's  side  to  keep  the  wound  open;  but  I  am  deter- 
mined to  pluck  out  that  stone.     If  Pius  VII.  will  not  act 
like  a  man  of  sense  he  must  be  treated  like  any  other  danger- 
ous fool.     But  what  a  task  is  Rome  itself!     I  can  drain  the 
Pontine  marshes,  but  to  give  an  heroic  or  even  a  reasonable 
soul  to  that  Roman  rabble — that  I  cannot  do.  ...     Ger- 
many owes  me  not  less  than  Sicily,  Italy,  and  Spain  owe  me. 
You  talk,  you  others,  of  the  fall  of  the  Bastille.  ..." 

Napoleon  seemed  to  be  addressing  Hulin,  Augereau,  and 
the  Jacobins,  and  he  waited  for  three  seconds  as  though 
expecting  some  answer  from  these  invisible  listeners.  He 
went  on  with  a  rush: 

"The  fall  of  the  Bastille?  Germany  was  covered  with 
Bastilles.  I  gave  Germany  my  Code,  and  on  the  day  I  flung 


238  Schonbrunn 

open  her  law-courts  a  thousand  Bastilles  fell.  I  would  have 
done  as  much  for  England.  There  I  would  have  established 
a  republic;  given  Ireland  a  constitution,  Scotland  her 
ancient  kings,  and  revivified  English  jurisprudence  by  my 
Code." 

Duroc  did  not  blench.  His  ignorance  of  England,  of 
English  history  and  institutions  was  colossal  as  his  master's. 

"And  yet  they  seek  to  murder  me!"  Napoleon  ex- 
claimed. "England,  Rome,  Italy,  Austria,  Prussia,  five 
leagued  assassins,  hunt  me  down!  Ah,  Duroc,  if  my  murder 
could  but  set  Europe  free  or  realize  the  benefits  I  would  have 
bestowed  on  mankind,  how  willingly  would  not  I  offer  my 
breast  to  their  poignards!  And  had  that  dagger  reached 
my  heart  this  morning,  dying,  I  could  without  blasphemy 
have  uttered  the  prayer  of  Jesus,  'Father,  forgive  them, 
for  they  know  not  what  they  do. ' " 

The  sentiment  did  not  strike  Duroc  as  either  forced  or 
false.  He  was  accustomed  to  sudden  displayals  of  this 
trait  in  Napoleon's  character.  He  was  puzzled,  however, 
to  account  for  the  manifestations  of  such  feeling  to-night 
and  at  this  hour  for,  on  retiring,  the  Emperor  had  shown 
not  a  trace  of  such  a  frame  of  mind. 

"Your  enemies,"  he  said  rather  formally,  "will  have  to 
force  a  way  through  many  devoted  breasts  before  their 
daggers  reach  yours,  Sire." 

Napoleon  seized  the  word. 

"My  enemies?  But  who  are  now  my  enemies?  It  is 
the  peoples;  it  is  the  oppressed  whose  miseries  I  wished 
to  alleviate.  It  is  the  down-trodden  whom  I  wish  to  up- 
raise. Everywhere  it  is  the  same  story — in  the  Tyrol,  in 
Catalonia,  in  the  Illyrian  provinces,  and  in  Portugal,  Hun- 
gary, and  Poland,  and  throughout  Germany  from  the 
Oder  to  the  Rhine,  the  slaves  I  would  have  set  free  lift 
their  manacled  hands  and  with  a  curse  dash  them  in  the 
face  of  their  liberator.  And  why,  mon  Dieu,  and  why? 


Napoleon's  Dream  239 

The  coalized  kings  I  could  have  resisted,  their  allied  govern- 
ments I  could  one  by  one  have  subdued;  but  the  coalized 
peoples — how  am  I,  how  is  France  to  make  war  upon  the 
peoples?  And  that  boy  this  morning,  Duroc,  that  miserable, 
that  fanatic,  he  came  as  their  emissary,  blind,  armed  with  a 
blinded  people's  mandate!" 

"Your  Majesty  ..."  Duroc  expostulated;  but  with  a 
gesture  of  denunciatory  fury  Napoleon  went  from  the  event 
straight  to  its  cause. 

' '  And  the  perverters  01  the  peoples  ?  They  are  the  priests 
forged  with  English  gold,  and  amongst  the  peoples  them- 
selves, it  is  superstition,  bigotry,  it  is  ignorance  fed  year  by 
year  with  English  lies.  And  how  successful!  In  Spain,  in 
the  streets,  by  yelling  monks  and  priests,  and  in  the  hiding 
places  of  the  guerillas  by  countless  pamphlets,  I  am  pro- 
claimed as  Anti-christ,  Satanias.  They  make  puns  on  my 
name,  Napoleon,  Appolyon,  Hell's  agent.  The  deluded 
rabble  believe,  and  with  such  priests  and  such  peasantry  do 
your  noble  English  fight  side  by  side!  In  the  Tyrol,  the 
emigre*  Chastelar,  on  whose  estates  men  ate  grass,  is  a  hero, 
and  the  capuchin  Haspinger  and  the  innkeeper  Hofer 
complete  the  triumvirate;  and,  by  God,  not  three  weeks 
ago,  this  noble  peasant  and  this  exemplary  priest  would 
have  shot  dead  my  envoy,  violating  the  most  rudimentary 
principles  of  war,  had  not  a  train  of  artillery  hovered  into 
sight  with  matches  lighted!" 

"Chastelar,  not  Hofer,  was  the  instigator,"  Duroc  said 
reassuringly.  "Your  Majesty  rewarded  his  intended 
victim." 

Napoleon  made  a  gesture  of  impatience. 

"And  of  what  is  it  they  complain,  these  Tyrolese?  What 
is  it  to  those  herdsmen,  farmers,  wood-carvers,  and  shop- 
keepers, whether  they  pay  their  taxes  at  Munich  or  Vienna  ? 
I  rescue  them  as  I  rescued  Pavia,  Verona,  Milan,  and  Padua 
from  the  Austrian  bureaucrats ;  I  take  them  into  my  system ; 


240  Schonbrunn 

they  are  permitted  to  serve  in  my  armies ;  I  give  them  laws, 
religious  tolerance,  enlightenment ;  they  share  the  glories  of 
the  French  arms,  and  merit  this,  for  they  are  brave.  Yet 
they  rise  up  against  me,  preferring  to  my  freedom  their 
hereditary  bondage  to  Austria!" 

With  a  sudden  gleam  in  his  eyes,  as  though  aware  of  the 
irony  implicit  in  the  concluding  phrase,  Napoleon  turned 
aside  with  the  sardonic  comment: 

"  It  is  encouraging,  all  this,  is  it  not,  and  gratifying  to  the 
world-emancipator?  Men  talk  of  the  wrongs  of  the  op- 
pressed; let  us  talk  a  little  of  the  wrongs  of  the  tyrant,  if  I 
am  a  type  of  the  oppressor!  But  I  have  aimed  too  high. 
To  a  superstitious  race,  you  can  bring  enlightenment; 
and  to  a  misgoverned  people,  justice ;  but  freedom,  national 
independence!  That  is  the  one  gift  you  never  can  bestow 
upon  a  nation.  That  can  be  won  only  where  Leonidas  and 
Themistocles  won  it — the  field  of  glory.  The  greatest 
wrong  I  could  do  to  the  Tyrolese,  the  greatest  wrong  I  could 
do  the  Spaniards,  would  be  to  withdraw  my  armies. " 

He  offered  Duroc  his  snuff  box,  and  when  the  latter 
coughed — for  the  passages  in  Schonbrunn  are  cold  and 
Duroc  had  just  risen  from  a  comfortable  bed — Napoleon 
made  him  stand  by  the  fire,  whilst  he  himself,  his  hands 
twisting  and  untwisting  behind  his  back,  resumed  his 
monotonous  pacing  of  the  floor. 


His  next  words  came  from  a  region  of  ideas  into  which 
Duroc  could  not  penetrate. 

"Why  do  men  trust  so  confidently,"  Napoleon  began  in 
a  low  and  melancholy  voice,  "that  posterity  in  its  judg- 
ments will  be  wiser  than  our  contemporaries?  History  can 
only  be  corrected  by  itself,  and  history,  most  of  it,  is  ca- 
lumny, voluntary  or  involuntary.  More  lies  are  told  hourly 


Napoleon's  Dream  241 

from  want  of  intelligence  than  from  deceit.  How  few  have 
the  seeing  eye,  the  understanding  heart !  Look  at  the  story 
of  the  Caesars.  How  do  we  know  that  Tacitus  was  not  a 
pedant,  a  cuistre,  and  Tiberius  a  magnanimous  ruler?  The 
latter's  countenance  is  a  countenance  worn  by  much  anger 
and  pain.  Yet  who  seeks  to  pierce  behind  the  paragraphs 
of  the  Annals  ?  And  in  modern  times  what  murderous 
facilities  for  calumny  has  not  man  invented!  And  these, 
these  my  enemies  have  employed  against  me.  What  have 
they  not  said?  What  have  they  not  made  the  peoples 
believe  of  me?  This  morning  was  a  proof  of  their  success. 
What  did  that  hot-head  say?  Ten  thousand  daggers  in  the 
hands  of  ten  thousand  fanatics  like  himself — all  pointed 
against  one  man's  breast!" 

The  mask  of  calm  was  preserved;  but  as  Napoleon  pro- 
ceeded the  concentrated  trembling  intensity  of  his  words 
seemed  to  shake  the  walls  and,  vibrating  in  the  nocturnal 
stillnesses,  to  die  away  only  in  the  most  distant  rooms  of  the 
palace. 

"Never  a  day's,  never  an  instant's  respite  in  the  war  of 
lies,  besmirching  my  government,  my  ministers,  my  mar- 
shals, my  soldiers,  my  family,  my  brothers,  my  wife,  my 
sisters.  The  lie!  It  is  still  the'  instinctive  weapon  of  the 
vile,  and  it  has  still  been  England's  weapon  against  me!  I 
am  at  her  mercy.  Her  putrid  eyes  have  discovered  my 
weakness;  for  I  and  my  government  are  one.  Who  strikes 
at  me  strikes  at  France.  She  herself  is  immune,  and, 
coward-like,  how  the  hypocrite  nation  has  used  her  advan- 
tages: Ten  years  since  Egypt — ten  years  of  truceless 
obloquy,  lies  and  still  more  lies !  Not  a  day  on  which  they 
have  not  gone  forth  from  England  like  flies  from  a  carrion 
by  the  road,  accusing  me  of  secret  murders,  unnameable 
actions,  incests,  perjuries,  fratricidal  rage — yes,  great  God, 
if  I  were  a  spirit  from  the  foulest  stye  in  Hell  it  would 
dishonour  for  ages  the  greatest  nation  on  earth  to  say  of  me 

16 


242  Schonbrunn 

the  things  that  England  says !  Why,  to-night,  at  this  dead 
hour,  you  can  almost  hear  her  printing-presses  groaning 
in  labour  with  the  hell-brood  that  to-morrow  shall  be 
scattered  to  every  capital  in  Europe — Paris,  Berlin,  Peters- 
burg, Stockholm,  Dresden,  Rome,  Seville,  Madrid  and  here 
in  Vienna  itself ;  yes,  here  in  Schonbrunn." 

There  now  came  a  sudden  look  of  devilry  into  Napoleon's 
face,  a  glint  as  of  lightning  into  his  eyes,  and  on  his  lips 
quivered  a  fugitive  mocking  smile. 

"And  at  Schonbrunn,  Duroc?  My  servants  are  loyal, 
tried,  faithful;  how  comes  it  that  every  act  I  perform  and 
every  word  I  say  is  known  in  London  ten  hours  afterwards  ? 
Tell  me,  Monsieur  le  due  de  Friuli. " 

But  before  Duroc  could  formulate  a  syllable,  a  thunderous 
look  replaced  the  smile,  and  making  his  spurred  heel  ring 
on  the  floor  Bonaparte  exclaimed  with  extraordinary 
energy : 

"Make  peace  with  England?  I  will  never  make  peace 
with  England  until  I  have  brought  on  her  a  humiliation 
greater  than  the  humiliation  of  Prussia,  or  until  I  myself 
am  dead  in  battle  or  like  Bajazet,  chained  not  in  a  Mongol 
cage  but  in  a  fouler  dungeon — an  English  prison-ship!" 

Then,  with  marvellous  skill,  adapting  to  his  mood  the  in- 
cidents of  his  dream,  at  once  justifying  himself  and  pillory- 
ing his  enemy,  he  said  in  a  singular  voice: 

"I  began  my  life  as  a  hater  of  tyranny.  The  death  of 
tyrants  was  the  meditation  of  my  boyhood.  I  have  lived 
and  shall  die  a  hater  of  tyranny;  but  the  tyranny  against 
which  in  my  manhood  I  wage  ruthless  war  is  more  repulsive 
than  any  which  seared  my  youth.  It  is  the  world-tyrant, 
England — that  nightmare  power  which  throttles  genius  or 
superior  thought  wherever  it  dares  lift  its  head.  'England ! ' 
the  name  is  wormwood  to  me!" 

He  stood  with  working  brow,  silent. 

"This  globe  is  the  fief  of  England!    It  corrodes  my  very 


Napoleon's  Dream  243 

soul,  Duroc.  Men  do  not  think;  they  will  not  understand. 
Assyria's  harryings  of  her  subject  provinces,  Rome's  calcu- 
lated cruelties,  are  less  abhorrent  than  this  hypocrite  empire. 
Where  is  it  to  end?  In  a  little  while  on  this  planet  itself, 
no  freeman  will  have  an  inch  of  earth  on  which  he  can  stand 
without  asking  permission  in  English !  I  tell  you,  it  cor- 
rodes my  very  soul.  If  I  fall,  I  shall  fall  in  one  of  the 
greatest  causes  humanity  has  undertaken,  earth's  last  stand, 
this  earth's  supreme  effort  to  bring  England  down!1' 

Duroc,  uncertain  whether  he  was  listening  to  the  outlines 
of  a  new  war,  of  a  resumption  of  the  Boulogne  enterprise 
now  that  peace  with  Austria  was  secure,  or  whether  it  was 
merely  Napoleon's  exasperation,  seeing  England  behind 
the  Tugendbund  and  the  dagger  of  Staps  as  he  saw  England 
behind  the  revolt  in  Spain  and  the  Tyrol,  became  infected 
by  Napoleon's  emotion. 

"Bring  England  down,  Sire!  Your  Majesty  is  on  the 
very  brink  of  success!  Your  blockade  is  already  sapping 
her  strength;  wages  have  everywhere  fallen,  prices  every- 
where risen ;  already  her  rich  men  are  discontented,  the  mid- 
dle sort  impoverished,  the  poor  starving ;  and  discontented, 
starving,  and  impoverished  men  are  ever  ready  to  rebel. 
Why,  your  Majesty,  there  are  already  reports  of  rioting  in 
Lancashire !  Seven  English  banks  have  failed  since  August ; 
her  navy  is  mutinous;  she  has  had  to  open  her  prisons  to 
get  volunteers  for  the  Peninsula,  yet  this  year's  harvests 
rot  in  the  fields!" 

Duroc  stopped,  waiting  to  see  the  effect  of  his  words. 

But  a  change  had  taken  place  in  Napoleon.  The  mag- 
netic energy  had  forsaken  him.  Plunged  in  gloomy  abstrac- 
tion he  seemed  to  listen  yet  not  to  hear.  And  indeed  his 
minister's  arguments  were  calculated  to  depress  rather  than 
to  inflate  the  Emperor's  pride.  Napoleon  had  an  instinct 
for  fact.  He  had  gauged  the  resources  of  England.  The 
"starvation"  war,  le  blocus,  had  lasted  three  years  and  in 


244  Schonbrunn 

the  English  line  he  perceived  not  a  trace  of  yieldingness. 
Duroc's  picture  of  impoverishment  and  discontent  might  or 
might  not  be  accurate  of  the  British  Isles;  it  was  irrefutably 
and  damnably  true  of  France.  Twice  a  day  his  courier 
from  Paris  added  fresh  hues  to  that  picture. 

"England  on  her  knees ! "  It  was  an  insult  to  his  reason ; 
nevertheless  he  did  not  contradict  his  minister.  Faith  is 
power,  and  faith  is  contagious ;  Duroc's  might  communicate 
itself  to  others. 

' '  My  right  wing  from  the  Scheldt  to  the  Oder  and  along  the 
Baltic  to  the  Neva  is  now  secure,  solid  as  adamant.  Prus- 
sia and  the  Czar  are  my  firm  allies.  To  Spain,  my  left  wing, 
I  will  send  Massena  to-morrow  to  hold  Wellington  in  check 
or  overwhelm  him  at  Lisbon;  whilst  I  in  Paris,  my  centre, 
control  the  whole.  This  is  my  war  of  Europe  against  the 
islanders.  And  yet,"  Napoleon  said  suddenly,  sitting  down 
and  resuming  his  pensive  tone,  "and  yet  something  within 
me  tells  me  that  I  shall  fall  in  that  war.  On  such  nights 
as  this  and  in  such  hours  I  forefeel  the  future.  My  end  is 
fixed,  and  that  end  is  disaster.  I  have  ceased  to  augur  of 
success  or  failure.  I  ask  only — When  will  it  come?  How 
and  in  what  shape?  The  bullet  which  struck  me  at  Ratis- 
bon  is  one  way;  that  dagger  this  morning " 

It  was  Duroc  in  his  amazement  or  affection  who  in- 
terrupted the  Emperor. 

"He  was  a  mere  fanatic,  Sire;  a  schoolboy  made  crazy 
by  reading  ..." 

"A  schoolboy!"  Napoleon  exclaimed,  casting  off  the 
momentary  prostration,  "I  tell  you,  Duroc,  that  dagger  is 
the  preliminary  flash  announcing  a  storm  in  which  you,  I, 
and  France  itself  shall  be  overwhelmed!" 

It  was  genuine  prophetic  insight ;  for  behind  the  enthusi- 
asm of  the  Tugendbund  and  the  resolution  of  Scharnhorst 
and  Gneisenau  was  the  rising  of  Germany;  Leipzig,  Hanau, 
the  passage  of  the  Rhine,  Laon,  and  Montmirail, — then  Elba 


Napoleon's  Dream  245 

and  Sainte  Helene;  but,  as  often  in  Bonaparte's  history, 
prodigal  of  such  instances,  its  significance  was  obscured  to 
himself  as  to  others  by  the  scepticism  of  the  period.  Yet  at 
this  moment  he  seemed  indeed  to  discern  the  future — there 
palpable  in  front  of  him,  actual  as  the  present  or  the  past, 
and  his  mind  grappled  for  an  instant  with  the  eternal 
problem — Is  the  future  in  very  deed  actual  as  the  past? 

Bonaparte  had  little  patience  for  such  problems,  though 
to-night,  mixed  with  the  omens  and  events  of  the  day  and 
his  dream  or  vision  of  a  few  minutes  ago,  it  left  a  singular 
expression  in  his  eyes. 

"Sire,  you  need  rest,"  Duroc  now  pleaded;  "Austria's 
reply  may  be  here  at  any  moment.  This  day  has  tried  you. 
You  need  sleep." 

' '  Rest  ? ' '  Napoleon  answered.  ' '  I  sleep,  but  I  never  rest. 
Alone  or  in  company,  eating,  walking,  riding,  driving,  I  am 
always  at  work,  forging  my  way  through  plans  and  problems 
to  solutions  and  decisions.  You,  Duroc,  Corvisart,  Ber- 
thier  and  the  others — I  know  what  was  in  your  thoughts 
to-night;  but  you  are  all  wrong.  I  shall  never  go  mad. 
My  brain  is  of  iron.  For  ten  years  I  have  governed  France 
and  Europe;  and  for  ten  years  I  have  been  my  own  finance 
minister,  my  own  war  minister.  My  home  and  foreign 
ministers  simply  expressed  my  will.  Yet  whatever  I  have 
done  myself  has  been  well  done,  whatever  I  have  entrusted 
to  others  has  been  bungled.  My  budgets  are  miracles  of 
success.  I  could  not  be  my  own  admiral,  and  at  sea  I 
have  a  Trafalgar  to  remember.  No ;  the  limitations  to  my 
power  of  sight  or  hearing  I  have  experienced;  but  never 
the  limitations  to  my  power  of  work;  not  until  now  ..." 
he  said  to  himself.  "But  now  I  seem  doomed  to  experience 
every  humiliation  .  .  .  Well!"  he  cried  suddenly  in 
an  indescribable  voice,  "Destiny  turns  against  me;  I  will 
turn  against  Destiny!  Yes,  I  will  be  the  antagonist  of 
Destiny!" 


246  Schonbrunn 

The  Corsican  accent  had  returned  to  his  voice  but  the 
expression  of  his  face  was  loftier.  Bonaparte's  mind, 
which  always  worked  at  several  ideas  simultaneously,  had 
worked  to  this  issue — that  comparison  of  his  life  to  a  tragedy 
which  he  had  made  before  the  due  de  Friuli  entered. 

"The  antagonist  of  Destiny!" 

To  Duroc's  somewhat  precise  military  mind  the  phrase, 
even  from  Napoleon,  was  startling,  and  he  looked  at  his 
master  in  furtive  doubt  and  incredulity.  Annoyed,  Napo- 
leon turned  on  him  swiftly. 

"Why  do  you  look  at  me  like  that?  What  is  in  your 
mind?  Answer!" 

Duroc  made  a  protesting  gesture. 

"Nothing,  Sire;  indeed  nothing." 

But  the  tone  was  ineffective,  and  did  not  deceive  Napo- 
leon for  a  second. 

"I  know  your  thought  but,  mon  pauvre  Duroc,  you  are 
wrong.  For  this  is  how  you  reason.  You  imagine  what  it 
would  mean  if  you,  Berthier,  Corvisart,  or  Rapp  spoke  in  this 
way,  acted  in  this  way;  and  you,  mon  pauvre  Duroc,  you 
become  afraid  of  me  and  for  me.  But  you  are  wrong.  I 
tell  you,  I  will  never  go  mad,  Never!" 

Duroc  became  perfectly  pale. 

"Madness?"  Napoleon  went  on,  resuming  the  tragic, 
whispering  tones.  "No;  I  could  not  bear  that.  Poor 
Pfeister !  You  remember?  How  horrible  it  was,  how  horri- 
ble! That  a  man,  nature's  paragon,  should  thus  sink  .  .  . 
Ten  million  deaths  were  better.  But  I  will  never  go  mad. 
Whatever  my  enemies  say  of  me,  never  believe  that  I  am 
mad,  Duroc." 

Napoleon  was  referring  to  a  persistent  rumour  circulated 
in  France,  Germany,  and  Spain,  in  Paris  in  the  subterranean 
Royalist  press,  in  English  and  even  in  such  northern  news- 
papers as  the  Scots  Examiner,  hinting  or  openly  declaring 
that  Napoleon  had  in  August  been  struck  with  madness. 


Napoleon's  Dream  247 

The  Edinburgh  rag  had  cited  instances  of  insane  monarchs, 
especially  Ivan  the  Terrible,  whose  hideous  crimes  it  com- 
pared to  Bonaparte's.  Esquirol,  the  great  Spanish  alienist, 
had  certainly  been  summoned  to  Schonbrunn.  For  the 
valet  Pfeister?  It  was  unlikely.  For,  asked  the  Examiner, 
is  Napoleon  so  attached  to  a  mere  body-servant  as  to  bring 
a  physician  six  hundred  miles  in  the  midst  of  a  campaign  to 
treat  him  for  a  nervous  breakdown  ? 

Duroc  saw  and  seized  an  opportunity  of  retrieving  the 
blunder  of  his  unfortunate  word  or  too  visible  thought. 

"Sire,  "  said  he,  "it  matters  nothing  to  a  great  man  what 
we  think  of  him  or  say  of  him,  we  others.  It  matters  only 
to  ourselves.  It  is  not  the  great  man,  but  we,  who  are 
affected  if  we  feed  our  souls  with  lies  instead  of  truths. 
What  can  the  muddy  vapours  above  the  marsh  matter  to 
the  sun?" 

"Yes,"  Napoleon  answered  with  a  short  laugh  into 
which  all  his  cynicism  and  enthusiasms  had  filtered,  "that 
is  very  well — when  we  are  dead.  It  matters  nothing  to 
the  dead  man  lying  underground  what  we  remember  or 
what  we  forget.  But  living,  it  matters  supremely  to  our- 
selves, to  the  soldier  as  to  the  politician  who  has  work 
to  do  amongst  men.  No;  calumny  is  strong.  To-night  I 
said,  did  I  not,  that  if  I  had  to  live  my  life  over  again  I 
should  not  swerve  one  inch  from  the  path  I  have  trodden, 
that  I  regretted  nothing,  repented  nothing?  It  was  an 
error.  I  repent  my  acts  of  pardon." 

Duroc,  steadying  his  finger-tips  on  a  table  beside  him, 
did  not  at  once  answer. 

"Your  Majesty,"  he  began,  "you  wrong  your  mildness. 
You  have  never  regretted  an  act  of  mercy." 

But  an  adder-like  thought  darted  through  his  mind  and  he 
stood  silent.  Intrigue,  rancour,  jealous  suspicion,  were  in 
the  very  air  at  Schonbrunn.  Marshals,  generals,  courtiers, 
lackeys,  all  were  infected.  Upon  Napoleon,  a  Corsican,  a 


248  Schonbrunn 

nature  formed  by  century  on  century  of  the  Vendetta  and  by 
deeply  ingrained  mistrust,  Duroc  had  witnessed  its  effects. 
Bessi£res  had  damaged  Lannes;  and  more  recently  Berthier 
and  Murat  had  damaged  to  Napoleon's  own  hurt  the  great- 
est soldier  in  his  army,  Davout,  the  hero  of  Auerstadt  and 
of  Eckmiihl.  And  the  question  rose  in  Duroc's  mind, — • 
"Have  not  I  too  my  enemies?  And  have  not  I  been  re- 
sponsible again  and  again  for  Napoleon's  acts  of  pardon? 
Have  my  enemies  been  plying  him  this  evening?  Is  that 
the  meaning  of  this  untimely  summons — that  the  meaning 
of  these  soliloquizings?  Does  he  suspect  that  I,  suborned 
by  Vienna  or  Weimar,  wish  him  to  pardon  Staps?  " 

To  suppose  Duroc  capable  of  such  treachery  would  have 
been  monstrous;  but  to  a  mind  like  Napoleon's,  consumed 
by  suspicions,  surrounded  by  spies,  nothing  was  monstrous. 

And  now  in  spite  of  himself  Duroc  averted  his  eyes  before 
the  searching  cold  scrutiny  not  unmixed  with  surprise  in 
Napoleon's  steady  gaze.  Then  he  made  his  decision. 

"  Sire,  there  are  instances  when  leniency  is  a  crime.  I  am 
not  always  on  the  side  of  mercy.  Two  months  ago  I  urged 
you  not  to  pardon  Madame  Oudet.  The  wrong  to  the 
Emperor,  to  yourself,  you  may  forgive;  but  the  wrong  to 
France — how  is  that  to  be  forgiven?  In  will  if  not  in  act 
this  boy  is  a  murderer,  guilty  amongst  the  guiltiest. " 

A  profound  sigh  escaped  Napoleon;  and  to  Duroc's 
astonishment  he  flung  himself  on  the  sofa  in  a  posture 
of  deep  dejection. 

"You  do  not  search  the  heart  very  deeply,  mon  pauvre 
Duroc.  When  the  wrist  falters  and  the  aim  is  missed, 
whether  the  weapon  be  a  poignard  or  a  musket,  who  dares 
affirm  that  the  first  faltering  was  not  in  the  mind?  The  psy- 
chologues  leave  all  that  unexplored.  But  an  unsteady  or  ir- 
resolute hand,  I  affirm,  points  to  an  unsteady  or  irresolute 
will.  If  this  youth's  resolution  had  been  steadfast  this 
morning,  steadfast  as  he  protests,  why  did  it  fail  him  just 


Napoleon's  Dream  249 

when  it  ought  to  have  been  at  its  highest?  I  would  not 
have  failed, — I  had  twenty  Savarys  and  Berthiers  rushed 
between  me  and  my  enemy. " 

Here  Duroc  lost  all  trace  of  the  workings  of  the  Emper- 
or's mind  and  of  the  connection  of  his  ideas.  Napoleon, 
to  whom  the  figures  of  his  dream  had  now  become  a  portion 
of  the  tissue  of  actual  experience,  integral  and  organic,  was 
now  attempting  to  exorcise  the  notion  that  he  was  a  tyrant ; 
he  was  seeking  to  erase  the  fancy  that  the  young  Thuringian 
hated  him  as  he,  the  young  Corsican,  had  hated  the  tyrants 
of  his  country. 

"The  hazard  in  things,"  Napoleon  exclaimed,  speak- 
ing in  a  voice  which  Duroc  had  rarely  heard  since  the 
Hamlet-like  soliloquizings  of  the  long  evenings  in  the  Tui- 
leries  during  the  Consulate.  "Youth's  ignorance  and  the 
hazard  in  things!  That  wretched  lad  is  but  one  mo^e 
instance.  Genius  may  be  consummate  at  twenty ;  but  know- 
ledge of  the  human  heart  comes  only  by  experience — and 
in  acquiring  that  experience  what  perils  must  not  youth 
encounter!  In  each  individual  of  merit  the  woes  of  the  race 
are  rehearsed.  We  read  a  book,  and,  mistaking  the  hem- 
lock for  the  grape-vine,  'It  is  Heaven's  very  voice, '  we  say. 
We  hear  a  speech;  we  arise  and  obey  the  divine  summons, 
and  with  a  whirr  and  snap  Fate's  trap  closes  on  us!  ...  I 
was  early  instructed  in  misery;  I  have  not  forgotten  the 
errors  I  made,  and  nature's  harsh  chastisements.  Rous- 
seau, when  I  was  sixteen,  was  my  first  guide  to  chaos.  Then 
came  my  hero-worship  for  Paoli.  Yet  we  had  a  cause  in 
Corsica;  the  tyranny  against  which  we  rose  was  tyranny 
indeed. " 

There  was  a  sudden  ring  in  his  voice.  In  imagination 
Napoleon  was  confronting  his  two  spectral  visitants, 
challenging  their  criticism. 

He  resumed. 

"I,  betrayer  of  Liberty?     It  was  not  I  who  betrayed 


250  Schonbrunn 

Liberty  but  Liberty  that  betrayed  me.  I  detected  the 
imposture,  saw  through  its  deceptions  more  quickly  than 
others — that  is  all.  Man's  last  dream,  I  said?  It  shall 
also  be  man's  last  disillusionment.  Men  are  not  equal. 
Nature  and  the  human  soul  protest  against  that  monstrous 
creed.  Even  at  sixteen  I  was  not  its  dupe.  God  is  distinc- 
tion. The  mob  and  its  virtues  God  despises,  and  fills  the 
mob's  trough ;  but  with  the  solitary  great  man  He  converses 
in  the  cool  of  the  evening.  But  sometimes  His  words  are 
swords." 

After  a  silence  of  several  seconds  he  resumed — "In  place 
of  Rousseau's  shadow-creed,  the  equality  of  men,  I  deter- 
mined to  put  a  substance.  I  resolved  to  give  to  man's  life 
new  energies,  new  vigour;  to  resuscitate  the  ancient  virtues, 
but  to  mould  them  into  a  new  heroism.  La  carriere  ouverte 
aux  talents — the  path  of  glory  to  him  who  can  tread  it! 
That  was  my  message,  that  was  my  Koran.  In  Italy  at  six 
and  twenty  I  inscribed  that  message  on  my  banners;  and 
with  what  a  huzza  of  joy  the  young  men  of  France  bounded 
to  the  call!  Montenotte,  Lodi,  Rivoli,  Arcola — the  glory 
of  it,  Duroc,  the  splendour,  the  intoxication,  and  the  power! 
From  the  Tagliamento  we  looked  towards  Vienna — the 
gleam  of  our  lances  was  enough,  Austria  made  peace; 
and  conquerors  still,  we  swept  in  our  revel  of  war  to  the 
Pyramids  and  the  Nile.  We  returned;  and  after  the  burn- 
ing desert  we  faced  the  Alps  and  their  snows;  and  at 
Marengo  the  watch- word  that  I  had  given  to  France  became 
the  watch-word  of  a  world.  ' '  The  path  to  glory  to  him  who 
can  tread  it!" 

He  paused.  He  looked  around.  Duroc  sat  as  if  in  stone. 
Only  the  midnight  silences  answered  Napoleon. 

He  went  on  with  his  singular  reverie.  Yet  at  this  point 
the  Emperor's  rhetoric, — a  kind  of  aphoristic  grandilo- 
quence, partly  Corsican — it  can  easily  be  traced  in  Paoli 
and  in  the  correspondence  of  Pozzo  di  Borgo — partly  nur- 


Napoleon's  Dream  251 

tured  by  the  study  of  the  Roman  historians,  always  rhetori- 
cal even  when  most  terse, — now  took  a  tinge  of  ironic  yet 
anxious  questioning. 

"It  was  a  creed  for  Achilles  and  the  ancient  world,  but 
not  for  modern  France.  For  Asia  I  had  too  little  faith;  for 
modern  Europe  too  much.  The  heroic  eras  are  behind  us. 
The  day  for  the  "doing  of  great  things"  is  over.  Berna- 
dotte,  you  said  this  afternoon,  "is  envious,  but  not  a 
traitor."  Who  taught  you  that  envy  was  a  crime?  In  the 
generous  heart  envy  itself  becomes  generous.  The  glory  of 
Miltiades  keeps  Themistocles  awake  at  night  and  by  that 
envy  the  victor  of  Marathon,  though  dead,  fights  at  Salamis. 
I  would  have  made  Europe  know  again  those  lost  virtues, 
valour,  the  high  and  spiritual  valour  and  liberty  of  soul 
which  sank  with  Hellas  and  Rome.  The  freedom  I  offered 
France  was  a  more  dazzling  freedom  than  ever  shone  upon 
Rousseau's  dream.  My  wars — they  denounce  my  wars! 
Men  do  not  understand.  Men  do  not  think.  My  wars 
have  been  the  overflowing  of  the  Nile;  a  devastation,  but  a 
devastation  from  which  Europe  would  have  arisen  new- 
born. Talleyrand  sniggered  to  the  Czar  at  Erfurt  that 
Russia  was  a  barbarous  nation  governed  by  an  enlightened 
ruler,  France  an  enlightened  nation  governed  by  a  barbar- 
ian. I  welcome  the  epigram.  A  la  bonne  heure !  Did  not 
Charles  XII.  love  to  compare  himself  with  Alexander?  Yet 
what  idea  upbore  Charles  XII. 's  wars  except  the  aggrandize- 
ment of  Sweden?  Alexander's  wars  had  in  them  an  idea. 
He  upreared  by  the  Nile  a  city  to  his  own  godhead  and 
crossed  the  Tigris  to  Hellenize  Asia.  My  wars  too  had  an 
idea — une  idee — wide  as  humanity.  I  would  have  given 
all  men  a  French  mind.  A  new  civilization  should  have 
dated  from  me,  and  A.N.  instead  of  A.D.  become  the  rubric 
of  the  centuries  .  .'  .  Ah,  if  I  could  but  have  ten  more 
years,  Duroc,  or  even  five.  Much  could  be  done  in  five. 
But  no;  it  is  useless,  tragic  and  useless.  I  have  come  into 


252  Schonbrunn 

the  world  too  late.  Man's  instinct  for  the  heroic  is  gone, 
atrophied  by  two  thousand  years  of  priestcraft  and  hypo- 
crisy. Genius  and  greatness  lie  dying,  or — "  Napoleon 
stopped,  then  with  a  sudden  grotesque  inspiration  added — 
"  suffocated  under  bales  of  English  wool  and  Lancashire 
cotton!" 

But  his  laugh  was  unpleasant,  even  terrible. 

The  mention  of  England,  Duroc  had  observed,  always 
made  Napoleon's  thoughts,  so  to  speak,  "inarticulate." 
Yet  even  to  the  worn-out  Themistocles  jargon  the  Emperor 
to-night  had  given  a  new  and  vitalizing  touch. 

"I  was  then  the  man  of  destiny,"  Napoleon  went  on. 
"Eh  bien,  I  said,  'let  us  abjure  heroism.'  And  I  made 
myself  practical.  I  said  to  feudal  Europe,  to  moribund  and 
decrepit  Austria,  to  Germany  and  to  Prussia, — 'Your 
patents  of  nobility  are  obsolete;  dry-rot  consumes  them. 
Behold,  I  show  you  a  new  nobility.  He  that  has  once 
been  wounded  in  battle  shall  have  one  quartering;  he  that 
has  been  wounded  twice,  two  quarterings ;  and  he  that  hath 
twenty  wounds  shall  sit  .down  to  table  with  any  Hohen- 
zollern,  Habsburg,  or  Wittelsbach  of  you  all.'  Heavens! 
What  an  uproar!  From  the  Volga  to  the  Thames  haro 
against  the  blasphemer!  A  score  of  purple-faced  monarchs 
and  their  slaves  bellowed  against  me — 'Brigand,  cut-purse, 
enemy  of  religion,  monster  of  vice!'  I  made  myself  em- 
peror, and  the  monster  of  yesterday  was  Monsieur  mon  frere 
of  to-day.  And  the  haughtiest  of  them  vied  with  each 
other  in  offering  their"  daughters  to  my  brothers,  to  my 
stepson,  and  even  to  my  valets.  My  gospel  of  heroism 
they  rejected.  I  made  myself  a  monarch  amongst  mon- 
archs, and  at  their  own  game  quickly  surpassed  them. 
My  usurpations!  My  lawlessness!  See  the  Hohenzollern, 
Romanoff,  and  Habsburg  vultures  round  dying  Poland! 
.  .  .  And  in  this  very  palace,  in  this  very  room,  what  was 
the  pet  scheme  that  Joseph  II.  and  his  empress-mother 


Napoleon's  Dream  253 

meditated  day  and  night?  It  was  to  pawn  Belgium  for 
Bavaria  and  make  of  Munich  another  Warsaw.  Yet  the 
Jacobins,  men  like  Hulin  and  Reynaud  who  ought  to  know 
better,  grumble  in  secret — 'Why  is  he  not  like  Washington? 
Why  make  himself  Emperor?'  Washington!  That  Yan- 
kee deacon  with  his  paltry  one  and  a  half  millions  scattered 
over  millions  of  square  miles,  one  man  a  mile,  a  new  nation, 
a  new  land,  severed  by  leagues  of  ocean  from  everywhere, — 
whilst  I,  in  France,  this  immemorial  monarchy,  its  traditions, 
prejudices,  hopes,  enmeshed  in  foreign  policies  of  a  thousand 
years  .  .  .  Washington  and  Napoleon !  It  is  a  theme  for 
the  eloquence  of  headmasters !  Men  of  sense  will  not  even 
give  it  a  thought!" 

VI 

The  silence  had  now:a  tinge  of  the  supernatural,  and  be- 
gan to  affect  Duroc.  This  room  and  the  whole  palace 
seemed  haunted  by  the  dead  kings  and  emperors,  princes 
and  princesses,  who  had  loved  their  loves  and  hated  their 
hates  here.  The  cessation  of  Napoleon's  voice  accentu- 
ated this  effect,  though  like  ghostly  echoes  its  vibrant 
accents  still  seemed  to  linger  about  the  corridors. 

And  in  Duroc's  soul  there  were  echoings  also — a  life- 
scheme  by  him  who  had  framed  it,  a  life-scheme  which  he 
himself,  Duroc,  had  lived  through  fourteen  years  that  were 
like  fourteen  centuries;  for  to  himself,  as  to  Desaix  and 
Rapp,  Bonaparte  had  given  a  religion.  Desaix  or  Lannes 
was  the  Khalid,  the  Sword  of  God,  to  this  new  Mohammed; 
Arcola  and  Marengo,  the  battles  of  Bedr  and  Damascus. 
All,  in  an  incredible  panorama  whilst  Napoleon  was  speak- 
ing, had  been  driving  past  Duroc's  eyes,  taken  up  as  into  a 
mountain.  "A  tyrant?  This  man  a  tyrant?"  thought 
Duroc.  "He  is  a  hero,  and  has  brought  back  the  secret 
of  heroism  that  was  lost  to  the  world  with  Roland  and 
Charlemagne!" 


254  Schonbrunn 

And  as  though  conscious  of  the  very  terms  in  which  Duroc 
formulated  that  silent,  fervid  thought,  Bonaparte's  whole 
figure  relaxed,  and  in  a  voice  of  almost  playful  charm, 
prefaced  by  a  smile  which  gave  a  beauty  to  his  lips,  and  to 
his  countenance  that  tragic  serenity  seen  only  in  certain 
Greek  sculptures  of  the  heroic  period,  he  went  on : 

"Did  Andre*ossy  tell  you?  In  Vienna  here,  in  this  city 
which  I  could  raze  to-morrow  and  draw  a  plough  across 
its  site  as  Rome  did  Carthage,  or  reduce  to  a  cinder-heap 
as  Genghis  did  Samarcand — in  Vienna  here  it  was  dis- 
cussed two  days  ago  by  a  committee  of  the  elite  whether, 
without  inviting  me,  they  dared  invite  my  aide-de-camp 
Montesquieu  to  some  assembly  in  the  Rittersaal  that  is  to 
be  held  to-night.  Yet  it  is  by  my  permission  that  these 
preux  chevaliers  even  enter  that  Rittersaal!  But  I,  it 
seems,  I  have  not  the  necessary  number  of  quarterings. 
My  valet  de  chambre  possesses  them!" 

Here  Napoleon's  smile  became  laughter.  He  seemed  in 
his  joy  at  this  exhibition  of  human  fatuity  to  be  on  the  point 
of  pulling  Duroc's  ear.  The  latter  even  felt  the  fingers  of 
the  Emperor's  hand  before  that  hand  had  left  the  back  of 
the  sofa  which  it  was  tapping. 

"These  high-born  mountebanks!  In  Vienna  is  not 
imbecility  at  its  zenith?  But  with  my  Toison  d'Or  I  will 
end  all  that  as  I  ended  that  worm-eaten  absurdity — the 
Holy  Roman  Empire.  Tiens,  see  here." 

The  Emperor  went  to  a  cabinet  and  took  out  the  first 
copy  of  the  new  Order  executed  in  Paris  from  a  design  of 
Lejeune,  Berthier's  aide-de-camp,  and  received  at  Schon- 
brunn some  days  ago.  Still  standing  by  the  cabinet,  Napo- 
leon examined  the  copy  critically.  A  slight  frown  showed 
itself  on  his  brow  at  once.  He  had  at  first  sight  been 
pleased  with  Lejeune's  design;  but  to-night  its  ostenta- 
tion outraged  his  common  sense  if  not  his  taste.  Still,  he 
handed  it  to  his  minister  without  comment. 


Napoleon's  Dream  255 

"You  do  not  like  it?  "  he  said  instantly. 

"Your  Majesty  as  ever  reads  my  thoughts  justly." 

"But  what  is  the  matter  with  it?  Dites,  dites! — but  it  is 
not  necessary.  I  know.  I  know. " 

He  thrust  the  glittering  gewgaw  back  into  its  case,  lined 
with  purple  velvet,  and  shut  the  cabinet  with  a  snap. 

"N'en  parlons  plus.     Let's  say  no  more  about  it.'* 

The  new  Order  of  Chevaliers  was,  in  the  conception  of 
its  inventor,  to  supersede  or  abase  the  Order  instituted  four 
centuries  ago  by  Philip  of  Burgundy,  blending  so  happily 
the  ideas  of  mythology,  commercialism,  and  mystic  sym- 
bolism. Emperors,  princes,  kings,  great  barons  had  worn 
the  ancient  Order.  It  had  gleamed  on  the  breast  of  Egmont 
and  of  Horn  as  they  walked  to  the  scaffold.  The  new 
Order  was  an  equally  happy  blending  of  Napoleon's  habi- 
tual grandiosity  in  such  matters  and  Lejeune's  habitually 
offensive  swagger.  Lejeune,  Berthier's  aide-de-camp,  over- 
excited by  his  adventure  in  the  Tyrol,  had  drawn  the 
French  eagle  grasping  in  its  talons  both  the  Golden  Fleeces 
of  Spain  and  Austria,  whilst  from  its  beak  hung  suspended 
the  Fleece  of  France.  To  describe  the  design  with  Gentz  as 
"a  blasphemous  parody,"  is  folly  or  sycophancy;  but  the 
new  Order  had  the  fatal  demerit  of  arrogance,  and  a  few 
months  later  during  the  negotiations  for  the  marriage  with 
Marie  Louise  it  was  tacitly  withdrawn. 

' '  What  a  childish  affair  is  this  '  high '  politics,  is  this  '  great ' 
history! "  Napoleon  said,  reverting  to  the  Rittersaal  episode. 
"Ragamuffins  shouting  nick-names  to  each  other — these  are 
the  solemn  historians  and  the  great  politicians !  I  have  lived 
in  the  palaces  of  my  enemies  as  no  Bourbon  or  Habsburg 
ever  did;  and  when  I  ride  through  Vienna,  Austria  shoots 
out  her  underlipand  grunts  "parvenu!"  England,  when  I 
make  her  millions  quake  from  shore  to  shore,  hypocrite 
England  screams  out  'ogre'  and  'anti-Christ.'  Mon  Dieu, 
Duroc,  who  will  deliver  me  from  my  future  biographers? 


256  Schonbrunn 

Above  all,  who  will  deliver  me  from  my  encomiasts?  From 
such  mud,  the  biography  I  wish  is  a  biography  in  which  every 
sentence  shall  be  the  reverse  of  the  truth ;  a  biography  in  which 
I  shall  be  described  as  surrendering  at  Ulm,  or  as  defeated 
at  Austerlitz ;  that  I  beheaded  Talleyrand,  and  at  Tilsit,  on 
the  raft,  secretly  strangled  the  Czar;  burnt  down  Versailles, 
demolished  the  statues  in  the  Vatican — que  scais-je?" 

Duroc  was  aware  that  this  was  not  Napoleon's  habitual 
manner  in  speaking  of  biography  and  of  history.  Only 
three  weeks  ago,  for  instance,  upon  the  occasion  of  a  secret 
embassy  from  the  new  King  of  Sweden,  he  had  said  to 
Blenstetter  the  envoy : 

"  The  Swedes  have  done  well  to  depose  Gustavus  IV.  Let 
his  successor  profit  by  this  example.  Let  him  see  in  this 
one  more  proof  that,  whilst  I  live,  the  surest  presage  of 
disaster  to  a  monarch  is  England's  alliance.  I  am  not 
entirely  satisfied  with  your  new  sovereign's  policy.  It  is 
timid,  and  unworthy  of  the  name  he  bears.  Why  does 
he  not  read  history?  It  is  the  only  philosophy,  and  should 
be  the  instructor  of  kings." 

But,  more  tactful  than  Rapp,  gifted  also  with  a  finer 
discernment  than  that  slightly  wooden  individual,  Duroc 
asked  for  no  reconciliation  of  the  contradiction;  perhaps 
he  himself  saw  that  the  contradiction  was  only  apparent, 
that  the  History  of  which  Napoleon  had  spoken  to-night  was 
History  viewed  from  a  transcendental  standpoint,  and  that 
to  Blenstetter  three  weeks  ago  he  was  speaking  of  a  homelier 
affair. 

A  singular  and  beautiful  light  flickered  and  sank,  but 
rose  again  in  Napoleon's  eyes.  The  brooding  introspection 
vanished.  That  beauty  and  terror  which,  in  Bolli's  phrase, 
made  Napoleon's  eyes  "unlike  those  of  any  other  mortal" 
flamed  in  them.  Napoleon  was  about  to  speak  of  war;  and 
the  hero-gaze  of  the  leader  of  armies  for  a  moment  had 
displaced  Corvisart's  nervopath. 


Napoleon's  Dream  257 

"The  ancients  said  in  Homer,  'Nothing  that  crawls  is 
more  wretched  than  man.'  I  say,  'Nothing  that  crawls 
is  viler  than  man,'  and  I  have  had  experience  enough  and 
opportunity  enough ;  and  a  despair,  blacker  than  the  black- 
est defeat,  comes  over  me  at  times — contempt,  a  corrosive 
rage  of  contempt  for  the  human  race.  To-day  has  brought 
me  one  of  those  moments  ...  I  can  turn  to  that  Tugend- 
bund  pamphlet  and  embrace  the  portrait  of  myself — the 
world-redeemer  become  the  world-destroyer  in  loathing  of 
that  which  once  I  would  have  saved.  But  in  war  is  purity. 
What  is  the  hideousness  of  war  beside  the  hideousness  of 
peace?  Men  do  not  understand.  War  is  a  flame;  peace 
corrupts.  War  is  incorruptible,  ethereal  as  the  elemental 
fire.  The  sufferings  of  war?  Never  more  than  one  life 
pants  out  its  agony  on  the  battlefield.  It  is  the  regarding 
eye  that  sees  the  united  misery.  In  that  sapper  crushed 
under  a  gun-carriage  yesterday  a  tragedy  bloody  as  Wag- 
ram  was  rehearsed.  What  battle  of  mine  ever  led  to  such 
concentrated  tortures  as  the  blundering  British  stumbling 
into  that  pest-house  of  Walcheren?  War?  Life  is  war. 
In  all  my  battles  never  more  than  one  man  fell.  I  do  not 
underrate  the  individual  suffering — moi.  It  is  to  under- 
stand such  suffering  that  I  visit  my  battlefields  after  the 
victory.  My  enemies  in  their  caricatures  draw  me  as 
gloating  over  the  wounds,  the  amputations " 

Duroc  made  a  gesture  of  indignation. 

"Sire,  your  Majesty — these  infamous  cowards  ..." 

"What  does  indignation  serve?  You  have  seen  the 
English  newspapers.  And  why  do  I  visit  my  battlefields? 
I  visit  them  because  I  wish  to  see  what  this  individual  suffer- 
ing means.  I  visit  them  because  to  the  dying  who  lie  there 
in  my  cause,  dying  for  me,  it  is  a  consolation  or  a  joy  to  see 
me.  What  am  I  in  my  old  coat?  A  symbol,  I  suppose,  a 
symbol,  Duroc.  Francis  II.  who  watches  his  battle  from  a 
windmill  ten  miles  away,  and  George  III.  who  drivels  up 
17 


258  Schonbrunn 

and  down  Hampton  Court  gardens  and  never  saw  a  battle 
even  ten  miles  away,  do  not  believe  in  this.  How  are  they 
to  believe  in  it?  How  are  they  to  understand  what  it  is  to 
see  one  of  those  magnificent  grenadiers  stretched  on  the 
ground  amid  the  wreckage  of  a  fight,  roaring  with  agony, 
suddenly  spring  to  his  feet,  shout  your  name,  'Vive  1'Emper- 
eur!'  and  fall  dead,  his  face  resplendent  with  happiness,  if 
happiness  be  enough  to  describe  the  light  which  lights  up 
that  face " 

"I  have  seen  it,"  Duroc  said  in  a  husky  voice,  deeply 
moved.  "I  have  witnessed  it,  your  Majesty." 

A  sudden  sound  startled  him,  and  startled  Duroc.  The 
same  interpretation  traversed  their  minds  simultaneously. 

"It  is  Austria's  answer." 

There  was  an  instant  change  in  Napoleon's  figure.  The 
relaxed  posture  disappeared ;  energy  in  every  muscle,  every 
nerve  strung,  and  in  his  eyes  the  battle-light,  he  was  looking 
across  the  lines  of  war  already. 

But  quicker  than  Duroc  he  saw  the  error  that  both  had 
made,  turning  every  sound  into  the  order  of  ideas  dominat- 
ing the  mind. 

It  was  the  footsteps  of  a  sentinel,  but  it  was  also  the 
striking  of  an  hour,  and  the  interchange  of  voices,  challenge 
and  answer.  It  was  not  a  midnight  visit,  but  merely  the 
relief  of  the  guard  stationed  throughout  the  palace  at  ten 
o'clock. 

The  Emperor  and  his  minister  were  silent  for  several 
seconds.  Neither  alluded  to  the  error;  nor  did  either  by 
any  words  affect  to  dissemble  or  make  light  of  the  error. 

VII 

"  What  is  the  hour?  "  the  Emperor  asked  negligently  when 
the  various  chimes,  harsh  or  silvery,  had  died  in  the  rooms 
or  along  the  corridors  and  the  supernatural  silence  once 
more  crept  over  the  palace. 


Napoleon's  Dream  259 

"Two  o'clock,  Sire.     In  three  hours  day  will  break." 

Napoleon  showed  no  sign  of  taking  the  hint.  Between 
him  and  Duroc  there  had  intervened  one  of  those  charming 
moments  of  intimacy  which,  at  least  superficially,  resembled 
the  easy-goingness  of  two  old  friends  sitting  late,  each 
certain  of  the  other's  tolerance;  each  feeling  that  he  could 
speak  or  be  silent,  and  in  speech  or  silence  find  and  give 
pleasure.  Bonaparte  had  his  feet  on  the  sofa,  his  right 
hand  along  its  back,  his  chin  sunk  on  his  breast.  Duroc, 
at  a  sign  from  his  master,  had  seated  himself  on  a  kind  of 
stool  or  settee  with  gilt  legs  and  brocaded  top.  At  Schon- 
brunn  as  in  the  Tuileries  the  etiquette  of  the  new  French 
court,  in  spite  of  all  De  Remusat's  efforts,  was  a  blending 
of  common  sense  and  grotesque  rigidity.  Etiquette  implies 
gross  superstition  and  demands  the  sacrifice  of  time.  How 
was  the  son  of  an  attorney  to  see  a  sacred  act  in  the  un- 
buttoning of  his  chemise,  or  the  victor  of  Austerlitz  to 
find  leisure  for  the  six  entries  which  caricatured  even  human 
absurdity  at  the  levee  of  Louis  XIV.? 

"Why  do  the  Habsburgs  crowd  their  houses  with  clocks? 
In  their  do-nothing  empty  hours,  I  should  have  thought 
they  would  have  been  glad  to  forget  the  waste  and  passage 
of  time.  The  hobby  is  hereditary  as  the  under-lip.  At 
Madrid  I  found  Joseph  in  a  palace  that  ticked  like  a  watch- 
maker's shop. " 

He  laughed  to  himself,  quietly,  thinking  suddenly  of  the 
pasty  of  watches  which  Charles  V.'s  cook  presented  the 
Emperor  at  Yuste. 

"Poor  old  Joseph,"  Napoleon  went  on,  "what  an  absurd 
figure  he  cuts  in  the  Escurial!  What  an  absurd  figure  he 
cuts  in  any  position  except  that  of  a  surveyor  of  taxes 
or  a  confidential  clerk!  There,  however,  he  sits,  with  his 
crowned  head,  and  his  royal  cares  never  cost  him  a  sleepless 
hour.  Wellington  might  throw  a  cordon  of  horse  around 
the  Escurial  any  night  and  capture  le  bon  Joseph  snoring 


260  Schonbrunn 

beside  his  Dulcinea.  Think  of  his  face  and  hers,  Duroc, 
prisoners  in  their  nightgowns  in  the  English  camps!  And, 
morbleu,  I  should  not  miss  him!  It  would  be  merely  a 
queen's  pawn  or  at  worst  a  bishop  off  my  chess-board." 

Napoleon  rubbed  his  white,  fat  little  hands  in  glee, 
laughing  immoderately  at  his  own  malice. 

"  B  ut  there  is  no  danger,  "he  went  on.  "  Joseph  may  sleep 
sound.  He  was  always  a  famous  sleeper.  Yes,  I  remem- 
ber. After  my  father's  death,  though  I  was  the  younger,  I 
had  to  act  as  the  elder  brother  to  the  family;  see  to  every- 
thing and  everybody,  the  house,  the  mulberry  patch,  Louis, 
Jerome,  Elisa,  Pauline — mon  Dieu,  yes;  and,  I  sometimes 
think,  I  have  had  to  play  the  elder  brother  to  the  whole 
human  race  ever  since.  Before  I  was  sixteen  all  my  family 
was  on  my  hands;  before  I  was  twenty-two,  all  Corsica; 
then  all  France;  now  all  Europe,  and  to-morrow " 

Duroc  saw  the  excitement  return  to  Napoleon's  face,  and, 
remembering  Corvisart's  counsels,  he  became  uneasy  again. 
He  himself  needed  rest.  A  hundred  cares  awaited  him. 
The  Grand  Chamberlainship,  his  Carolingian  office,  was  a 
little  ridiculous,  but  the  duties  it  involved  were  serious. 
That  afternoon  they  had  been  made  harassing  by  the  ab- 
sence of  Raynouard,  a  brave  amongst  the  brave,  and  by  the 
sudden  illness  of  the  chamberlain  of  the  day.  Still,  he 
reflected,  Champagny  or  Liechtenstein  might  at  any  mo- 
ment appear  bringing  the  treaty  for  Napoleon's  signature. 

Napoleon,  resuming  his  amicable  pensive  tones,  inter- 
rupted his  musings. 

"We  went  to  the  same  school  at  Ajaccio,  Joseph  and  I; 
and  as  children  we  slept  in  the  same  bed,  and  night  by 
night  Joseph's  head  no  sooner  touched  the  pillow  than  off  he 
went  and  never  stirred  till  morning.  I  could  have  slept  too, 
but  I  preferred  to  lie  awake  listening  to  the  leaves  or  to  the 
surf,  working  and  scheming  how  to  be  top  of  the  class  to- 
morrow if  I  were  not  top  to-day,  studying  my  rivals,  con- 


Napoleon's  Dream  261 

ning  my   tasks,   history,   geography,    arithmetic,    French. 
Thirty-five  years  ago!     Where  were  you  then,  Duroc?" 

"In  1775,  Sire?  I  was  three  years  old,  and  at  Lucon, 
I  suppose.  Anyhow,  it  was  the  year  of  Louis  XVI.'s 
coronation.  I  remember  the  bonfires  and  the  ringing  of 
bells." 

Napoleon  jerked  the  words  from  his  lips: 

"And  to-night — here  we  sit  in  the  palace  of  the  Caesars, 
you  and  I,  at  that  time  two  of  the  most  insignificant  little 
boys  in  all  Europe  ..." 

Duroc  was  about  to  protest. 

"Here  we  sit,  you  a  duke,  I  an  emperor,  in  the  palace  of 
the  Habsburgs — and  we  are  at  the  same  game  still,  each  of 
us,  a  writhing  knot  of  collegiens,  struggling  to  get  to  the 
top  of  the  class.  Desaix  is  dead  and  Lannes,  let  out  of 
school  a  little  earlier.  I  ask  no  holiday  and  get  no  holiday. 
My  generals  and  marshals  come  to  me  for  leave  of  absence ; 
but  to  whom  am  I  to  apply  for  leave  of  absence?  Destiny 
and  the  inexorable  nature  of  things — that  is  my  superior 
officer.  Yet  I  know  a  spot,  Duroc,  a  valley  above  Bastia, 
full  of  wild  flowers  and  shut  in  by  rocks  from  the  sea. 
There,  if  I  were  to  imitate  Charles  V.  or  Diocletian,  there  I 
could  still  be  happy.  There  in  my  garden  of  mulberry 
trees  and  vines  I  might  have  leisure  at  last  to  read  La 
Mecanique  Celeste. " 

He  seemed  lost  in  recollection. 

"You  do  not  know  that  book,  you  others?  It  is  a  great 
book.  Laplace  sent  it  me  exactly  nine  years  ago  last  April ; 
but  it  wants  three  consecutive  months  to  read  it,  and  I,  I 
have  never  had  three  consecutive  hours." 

Napoleon  pleased  his  own  vanity,  perhaps  his  just  pride, 
by  distinguishing  himself  from  his  officers,  as  well  as  from 
contemporary  sovereigns,  by  the  superiority  and  variety  of 
his  intellectual  interests.  If  men  like  Johann  Markowitz 
and  Rentzdorf  in  Vienna  or  Gcethe  at  Erfurt,  measured  his 


262  Schonbrunn 

literary  judgments  and  his  scholarship,  there  were  always 
characterless  old  fops  like  Haydn  and  Wieland,  nature's 
valets,  prepared  to  lackey  the  great  man's  "versatility." 

"Yes,  there  I  could  read  Laplace  and  write  the  history  of 
my  grenadiers.  What  a  subject-matter!  No  one  else  will 
do  them  justice,  for  I  alone  understand  them.  We  have 
stormed  through  our  lives  together.  We  have  watered  our 
horses  in  every  river  from  the  Nile  to  the  Tagus,  from  the 
Baltic  to  the  Sicilian  Sea;  and  in  the  future  ...  If  I  had 
but  ten  more  years,  Duroc  .  .  .  Nature  meant  me  to  be  a 
writer  of  books, "  he  said,  abruptly  reining  in  his  thoughts. 
"It  was  my  earliest  ambition.  It  shall  be  my  latest.  I 
could  still  write  dramas — if  I  had  leisure.  I  confided  the 
plot  of  one  to  Raynouard  the  other  day." 

The  tone  was  or  seemed  to  be  inviting;  but  Duroc's 
face  remained  stony.  He  recollected  Lauriston's  descrip- 
tion of  the  three  hours'  interview  with  Napoleon,  walking 
up  and  down  in  front  of  his  tent  on  the  evening  of  the  5th 
July,  the  first  day  of  Wagram.  Perhaps,  too,  he  feared  lest 
Napoleon  should  at  this  dread  hour  confide  to,.him,  also, 
the  plot  of  his  unfinished  tragedy. 

Duroc  was  not  destined  to  be  bored  for  long.  Napoleon 
had  a  surprise  for  him.  Till  now  he  had  talked  with  his 
face  partly  in  profile  to  Duroc;  but  now  turning  suddenly  to 
face  the  latter,  Napoleon,  as  though  dismissing  all  these 
empty  speculations,  said  with  emphasis. 

"But  I  have  no  son,  Duroc." 

Had  he  dropped  a  hand-grenade  the  explosion  could  not 
have  startled  Duroc  more  effectively  than  these  six  words; 
the  most  momentous  state  secret  of  the  cabinets  of  Europe 
was  ushered  in  for  discussion. 

"My  interest  in  France  is  therefore  a  life-interest," 
Bonaparte  went  on.  "It  is  precarious.  The  hazard  of  a 
bursting  shell,  a  spent  shot  such  as  did  for  Lannes  .  .  . 
Hence  these  conspiracies;  yes  and  the  present  interminable 


Napoleon's  Dream  263 

negotiations.     If  I  am  to  paralyse  the  hopes  of  a  royalist 
restoration  I  must  have  an  heir." 

"Sire,  your  Majesty's  confidence  moves  me." 
But  to  himself  Duroc,  all  fatigue  banished,  put  question 
on  question.  What  was  Napoleon's  inmost  purpose  in  this 
communication?  The  Emperor's  face  was  serious,  even  sad ; 
but  it  revealed  nothing.  Nevertheless,  the  communication 
could  not  be  accidental.  Of  what  new  scheme  of  policy 
were  these  words  the  prelude?  Duroc's  mind  hurried  to 
the  answer.  He  knew  the  alternate  advances  towards  and 
retreats  from  a  divorce  during  the  past  two  years.  A  son 
had  been  born  to  Napoleon,  and  only  recently  Madame 
Walewska  had  become  enceinte  here  at  Schonbrunn.  This 
had  disproved  one  falsehood  and  removed  one  obstacle. 
He  knew  of  the  overtures  to  Alexander,  foiled  by  the  Czar- 
itza's  prompt  intervention  and  the  marriage  of  Alexander's 
sister  to  the  Duke  of  Oldenburg.  But  like  every  member 
of  the  inner  court  circle  he  knew  also  of  the  persistent 
rumour  of  a  secret  clause  in  the  present  negotiations, 
demanding  for  Napoleon  the  hand  of  an  archduchess. 
This  demand,  it  was  said,  had  first  been  made  in  a  manner 
highly  dramatic  or  melodramatic.  During  one  of  his 
hunting  expeditions  the  Emperor  attended  only  by  Rustum, 
had  entered  a  forester's  hut.  A  distinguished-looking 
stranger  had  entered  almost  at  the  same  moment,  and 
there,  it  was  said,  Napoleon's  demand  had  first  been  made. 
For  the  stranger  was  the  Archduke  Charles. 

"What  is  he  up  to  now?"  thought  Duroc,  and  every 
semblance  of  friendship  vanished.  He  became  an  adversary 
watching  an  adversary's  moves.  Nothing  was  in  his  mind 
but  a  vague  hostility  to  Bonaparte's  tortuous  methods, 
methods  excused  so  often  by  such  phrases  as — "It  is  in  the 
blood,  he  cannot  help  himself.  He  is  a  Corsican. "  Cen- 
turies of  private  justice  or  private  vengeance  have  made  it 
a  second  nature  in  the  race  to  mistrust  the  straight  road, 


264  Schonbrunn 

to  leave  even  your  friends  in  ignorance  of  your  true 
designs. 

Napoleon,  as  though  he  had  forgotten  his  minister,  but 
had  not  forgotten  his  own  ideas,  said  pensively: 

"My  family  might  be  an  incalculable  aid  to  me  but  my 
family  is  one  of  my  greatest  chagrins.  They  owe  every- 
thing to  me,  and  what  story  of  sudden  fortune  in  the 
Arabian  Nights  surpasses  or  equals  the  fortunes  of  my 
brothers  and  sisters?  Yet  they  have  no  gratitude.  My 
brothers  conspire  against  me  openly,  my  sisters  intrigue  in 
secret,  Lucien,  the  ablest,  defies  me.  He  has  abjured 
France,  and  when  last  I  heard  of  him  he  was  in  England — 
in  England,  Duroc,  my  deadliest,  most  malignant  enemy! 
And  why,  ye  gods?  Because  he  rendered  me  a  service  on 
Brumaire,  and,  his  head  swollen  with  vanity,  he  imagined 
that  by  his  aid  also  I  had  won  my  victories.  And  now, 
instead  of  taking  part  with  me  in  the  greatest  epic  action  of 
all  time,  he  moons  about  like  a  discontented  school-usher, 
writing  lame  alexandrines  on  Charlemagne.  Charlemagne! 
What  has  he  to  do  with  Charlemagne,  dead  exactly  a  thou- 
sand years  ago,  when  I  am  living  and  here?  And  what  has 
he,  my  brother  to  do  with  the  writing  of  epics  when  he 
might  be  living  one  every  hour  of  every  day?  And  the 
others  are  as  absurd,  destitute  of  common  sense  even  in 
the  pursuit  of  their  egoism.  I  know  the  things  that  imbe- 
cile Joseph  says  of  me.  I  made  him  King  of  Spain;  but  he 
would  raise  Spain  against  me  and  join  Wellington  to-morrow 
— if  Wellington  would  leave  him  king!  And  the  fool  can- 
not even  beget  a  son  to  succeed  me — nothing  but  daughters ! 
And  Jerome,  mon  Dieu,  Jerome!  Westphalia  is  the  young- 
est kingdom  in  Europe,  but  it  has  every  vice  that  dis- 
figures the  oldest.  Jerome  was  yesterday  starving  in  the 
streets  of  Marseilles,  yet  he  campaigns  with  a  larger  retinue 
of  harlots  and  bandboxes  than  ever  followed  a  Bourbon  to 
disaster.  How  would  your  ideologues  reconcile  these  con- 


Napoleon's  Dream  265 

tradictions  with  Montesquiou?  As  for  Louis — that  is  the 
bitterest.  Louis,  for  whom  at  Valence  I  denied  myself 
everything,  keeping  both  of  us  on  my  lieutenant's  pay. 
What  privations!  I  never  set  foot  in  a  cafe,  I  brushed  my 
own  uniform  that  it  might  last  longer.  This  for  his  sake 
who  now  does  everything  he  can  to  thwart  me  and  justify 
the  vilest  calumnies  of  my  enemies.  But  let  me  not  speak 
of  him.  You  know,  Duroc,  you  know  how  well  he  succeeds 
in  making  her  life  a  burden  to  the  good,  beautiful  woman  he 
has  married.  Ah,  why  did  you  permit  it?  Why  did  you 
make  it  necessary?" 

Duroc  looked  and  felt  extremely  uncomfortable.  Napo- 
leon was  alluding  to  Hortense  Beauharnais.  Ten  years 
ago  she  had  had  a  girl's  infatuation  for  Duroc  himself; 
but  at  that  time  no  man  suspected  the  coming  Caesarism, 
and  despite  Bonaparte's  advice  Duroc  had  refused  Jose- 
phine's daughter,  and  marrying  Elmira  d'Atchez,  the  heiress 
of  a  Spanish  banker,  he  had  found  with  her  a  domestic 
misery  as  great  as  Hortense's  with  Louis. 

"And  my  sisters!"  Napoleon  said  again,  but  this  time 
with  good-humoured  sarcasm.  "My  sisters!  Well,  Paul- 
ine has  a  heart  of  a  sort.  She  asks  for  nothing  but  a  few 
thousands  a  year — and  in  her  conduct,  well,  the  princesses 
of  the  old  regime  have  set  her  an  example  that  she  imitates 
too  successfully.  She  leaves  me  alone.  Would  to  God  I 
could  say  that  of  the  other  two!  But  I  tell  you,  Duroc,  if 
I  discovered  to-morrow  that  Caroline  my  youngest  and  once 
my  favourite  sister,  if  I  heard  that  she  had  taken  this  fana- 
tic into  her  embraces  and  in  the  act  placed  this  dagger  in  his 
hand,  whispering,  "For  my  brother's  breast;  be  bloody, 
bold,  and  resolute!" — I  could  not,  I  swear,  repudiate  the 
allegation.  She  has  done  things  as  hideous.  Metternich 
circulated  the  epigram  that  Caroline  had  the  head  of  Crom- 
well on  the  loveliest  shoulders  in  Italy.  Such  fatuities  are 
worthy  of  a  diplomatic  profoundeur ;  but  she  is  heartless ;  has 


266  Schonbrurm 

infinite  ingenuity;  she  is  ambitious  and  grasping  beyond 
belief.  Still,  I  have  a  kind  of  regard  for  her;  there  is  char- 
acter in  her  evil.  But  Elisa,  the  living  parody  of  myself, 
whom  I  rescued  from  St.  Cyr  on  the  very  day  of  the  prison 
massacres!  Her  I  find  unendurable.  I  never  see  her,  and, 
unless  I  am  compelled,  I  never  write  to  her.  She  is  Joseph's 
sister,  not  mine;  worse  I  cannot  say  of  her.  Tuscany  has 
neither  military  nor  political  significance,  but  the  Semiramis 
of  Lucca  will  have  a  court  which  apes  the  Tuileries  and, 
since  it  cannot  have  military  brilliance,  it  must,  if  you 
please,  have  literary  lustre.  And,  mon  Dieu,  what  a  crew! 
Every  man  whom  I  have  banished  from  France  or  forbidden 
to  live  in  Paris  finds  hospitality  with  my  sister — Fontanes, 
De  Stael,  Re*camier,  La  Harpe,  Boufflers,  Chateaubriand, 
who  since  his  return  from  the  East  has  more  than  ever  the 
hang-dog  look  of  a  conspirator  who  has  just  come  out  of 
the  chimney,  and  her  latest  triumph,  that  fiddler  Paganini, 
who  must  have  brought  his  devil's  skill  from  the  devil  only. 
My  sisters!" 

He  took  snuff,  sneezed  heartily,  and  began  to  walk  up  and 
down. 

"Had  Alexander  a  brother?  Or  Caesar  sisters?"  Napo- 
leon demanded  abruptly  and  stopped  in  his  walk,  glancing 
back  sideways  over  his  shoulder  at  Duroc. 

The  latter  hesitated,  then  answered  in  some  embarrass- 
ment: 

"Sire,  I  do  not  know.  I  have  forgotten  my  ancient 
history,  and  my  duties  to  your  Majesty  leave  me  little 
time  for  reading.  Daru  could  tell  us." 

"Caesar,  I  think,  had  no  sisters.  He  had  a  daughter, 
married  to  Pompey. " 

Napoleon  broke  off,  and  spat  on  the  floor,  and,  as  if  by 
that  symbolical  act  he  had  rid  his  mind  of  all  his  relatives,  he 
stopped  in  front  of  a  mirror  and  began  to  examine  his 
features. 


Napoleon's  Dream  267 

The  due  de  Friuli,  seeing  Napoleon  thus  absorbed, 
thought  this  a  favourable  occasion  for  him  to  spit  also. 
Accordingly  he  rose  and  in  the  Versailles  manner  spat,  not 
on  the  carpet,  but  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  then  sat  down 
again  and  looked  at  his  master. 

VIII 

The  latter  was  still  examining  himself  in  front  of  the 
mirror.  Evidently  the  results  were  not  satisfying,  for 
with  a  discontented  grimace  Napoleon  looked  at  his  hands; 
they  were  small,  well-made,  white,  and  plump,  but  the 
finger-nails  were  long  and  unpleasant-looking,  and  a  dirty- 
ish  yellow  in  colour. 

He  began  to  walk  up  and  down,  still  in  the  proximity  of 
the  mirror. 

"Since  Constant  showed  me  how  to  shave  myself,"  he 
observed  at  length,  "I  have  never  felt  clean.  Is  it  a  sign  of 
age  or  ill-health  when  the  beard  pushes  so  rapidly?" 

"I  should  say  it  was  a  sign  of  vigorous  health,  your 
Majesty. " 

Duroc  was  not  the  dupe  of  the  question  about  shaving. 
There  was  something  else  in  the  Emperor's  mind. 

Napoleon  had  again  returned  to  the  mirror  and  resumed 
the  contemplation  of  his  face  and  figure. 

There  was  no  resisting  the  impression,  he  reflected; 
the  notion  during  his  stay  at  Schonbrunn  had  occurred  to 
him  obstinately.  In  other  years,  say  from  the  days  of 
Arcola  to  those  of  Marengo,  even  to  those  of  Austerlitz, 
that  is,  from  his  twenty-fifth  to  his  thirty-fifth  years,  it 
had  been  his  mother's  face  which  invariably  started  forward 
to  meet  him  in  a  mirror,  a  Corsican  face,  lean,  bony,  aqui- 
line, almost  haggard,  but  possessing  its  own  beauty,  lit  up 
by  a  burning  energy,  dominated  by  the  brow,  the  very 
throne  of  intellect,  and  an  intent,  scrutinizing,  almost  terri- 


268  Schonbrunn 

ble  gaze.  Now,  however,  it  was  no  longer  that  face  which 
started  to  meet  him,  but  another  face,  indolent-looking, 
round,  overlaid  with  fat,  unattractive,  the  forehead  a 
meaningless  lump  of  flesh,  and  in  the  eyes  no  longer  the 
ardent  intensity  of  gaze  but  a  look  like  that  of  a  vicious 
horse.  It  was  his  father's  face.  Recently  also  he  had  to 
his  surprise  rediscovered  in  himself  his  father's  tastes  and 
his  father's  habits.  His  father's  maladies  had  plagued  him 
long  since. 

"  Talleyrand  is  right.  The  club-foot  is  blind  to  greatness, 
but  he  has  insight  into  corruption.  In  the  dregs  of  exist- 
ence the  highest  genius  finds  its  level." 

Bonaparte  had  no  doubts  in  his  own  mind  about  the 
superiority  of  what  is  usually  styled  "glory"  to  what  is 
usually  styled  "love";  but  he  was  not  less  certain  that  real 
love  and  real  glory  are  exceedingly  rare.  In  his  own  life 
he  had  only  experienced  real  love  once;  he  was  not  con- 
vinced that  he  had  ever  aroused  it  in  any  woman.  He 
asseverated  indeed,  "I  have  conquered  hearts  as  well  as 
kingdoms";  but  he  was  always  a  little  ashamed  of  his  own 
effrontery.  It  kindled  the  same  embarrassment  as  the  em- 
barrassment when  he,  the  Corsican  attorney's  son  spoke  or 
wrote  in  the  style  of  the  French  kings  of  "mon  peuple." 

"But  now?  This  eighteen-year-old  girl?  What  are  my 
chances?" 

He  was  not  a  man  to  linger  over  suppositions.  Assuredly, 
he  told  himself,  looking  at  the  reflection  in  the  glass,  there 
was  little  in  that  stumpy  figure,  those  legs  that  waddled 
under  the  shaking  fat,  that  huge  head  set  low  on  the  power- 
ful shoulders,  and  that  dwarf-like  enormity  of  chest — 
there  was  little  in  all  this  to  attract  the  candid  eyes  of  a 
young  girl.  Yet  it  was  just  this  attraction  that  mattered; 
maturity  created  for  itself  illusions  of  various  kinds — rank, 
great  power,  genius,  wealth — but  once  within  four  walls, 
te'te-a-te'te  with  a  young  girl,  a  great  soldier,  after  the  first 


Napoleon's  Dream  269 

fifteen  minutes,  lost  the  aureole  of  his  victories,  an  emperor 
that  of  power,  and  a  young  girl's  glance  became  more  dis- 
concerting than  the  bristling  gleam  of  ten  thousand  spears, 
and  the  manoeuvring  of  three  hundred  thousand  men  on  a 
battlefield  a  slight  task  compared  with  that  of  banishing  the 
look  of  boredom  or  vexation  from  her  eyes. 

Suddenly  Napoleon  threw  off  his  disguise.  In  Napo- 
leon's character,  the  impatience  which  made  it  intolerable 
for  him  to  be  on  his  guard  against  assassination  sprang 
from  the  same  root  as  the  headstrong  outspokenness  which 
again  and  again  made  him  disclose  secrets  in  conversation. 
His  immense  power  saved  him  from  the  consequences  of 
these  indiscretions;  but  in  a  weaker  man  they  would 
have  been  counted  defects.  Flatterers  or  dupes  have 
even  attributed  them  to  calculation  and  a  superior 
cunning. 

Even  in  his  frankness,  however,  Napoleon  revealed  his 
mind  in  his  own  way.  He  made  no  formal  exposition;  he 
simply  began  to  "think  aloud,"  permitting  Duroc  to  over- 
hear his  thoughts. 

"Indeed  it  is  hazardous  for  a  man  of  my  age  to  marry  a 
girl  of  eighteen.  Such  a  wife  expects  you  to  dance  to  one 
tune  only,  to  understand  her  whims  which  she  neither 
understands  nor  attempts  to  understand  herself.  Soldiers 
have  not  the  time.  What  a  frightful  fate  is  Marmont's! 
He  was  as  a  son  to  me  and  I  tried  to  save  him  from  that 
marriage.  Yes,  soldiers  ought  only  to  marry  women  of  a 
certain  character  and  a  certain  age,  as  Davout  did  years 
ago  and  as  Augereau  has  just  done.  Women  of  thirty, 
sedate  in  temper,  make  the  ideal  soldiers'  wives.  But  a 
child  of  seventeen,  Duroc?" 

Duroc  had  the  distinct  impression  that  Napoleon  wished 
to  be  contradicted;  that  he  was  stating  the  case  at  its 
worst  in  order  to  refute  it.  He  knew  the  two  marriages. 
Marshal  Davout,  due  d'Auerstadt,  afterwards  prince 


270  Schonbrunn 

d'Eckmiihl,  had  in  1803  married  Rose  Leclerc,  sister  of 
Pauline  Bonaparte's  first  husband.  The  manage  was 
everywhere  famous  as  the  happiest  in  the  French  army. 
Augereau,  due  de  Castiglione,  in  his  turbulent,  half-pirati- 
cal youth  had  married  a  beautiful  Spaniard;  but  he  had 
long  been  a  widower  and  a  few  months  ago  had  married 
again. 

"If  it  is  hazardous  in  a  soldier,"  Napoleon  went  on, 
"how  much  more  hazardous  in  a  soldier  who  is  also  the  ruler 
of  a  great  empire?  I  have  a  myriad  anxieties;  can  seldom 
be  alone;  am  exposed  at  any  moment  to  start  on  a  com- 
paign — it  is  to  court  disaster!" 

With  an  air  of  dejection  Napoleon  flung  himself  on  the 
sofa  again  and  in  low  friendly  tones  continued: 

"If  Josephine  could  have  had  a  son,  old  comrade,  how 
simple  and  beautiful  it  all  would  have  been.  For,  despite 
everything,  I  love  that  woman.  Mon  Dieu,  only  six  days 
ago,  at  a  vile  story  in  the  English  press,  I  was  about  to  start 
for  Strassburg,  torn  with  rage  and  longing.  Yes,  I  love  her. 
But  a  childless  marriage  is  no  marriage.  How  can  there 
be  a  'home'  without  the  laughter  of  children?  Josephine 
knows  this  and  is  unhappy,  and  I  know  that  she  knows  this 
and  I  am  wretched  as  she  is  wretched.  But  my  work  for 
France  is  only  half  completed  if  I  leave  the  nation  no 
security;  if  my  death  is  to  kindle  civil  war  and  again  let 
loose  the  Terror.  Yet  how  am  I  now  to  secure  that  stabil- 
ity, except  by  grafting  the  new  dynasty  upon  a  firmly- 
rooted  stock?  General  Bonaparte  could  choose  where  he 
would.  Napoleon  I.  is  no  longer  free.  Cruel  dilemma! 
To  repudiate  the  woman  who  better  than  any  other  under- 
stands my  character;  to  take  to  my  breast  an  inexperienced 
girl,  the  daughter  of  an  old,  corrupt,  and  haughty  house, 
nurtured  amid  curses  on  my  name,  her  father  the  monarch 
I  have  most  deeply  injured,  numbering  amongst  her  immedi- 
ate kindred  Marie  Antoinette,  whom  I  am  supposed  to 


Napoleon's  Dream  271 

have  beheaded,  and  Marie  Caroline,  whom  I  have  cer- 
tainly dethroned.  What  an  abyss  covered  with  flowers! 
It  is  a  moving  darkness  only  .  .  .  yet  it  is  in  my 
fate  ..." 

Doubt  vanished  from  Duroc's  mind.  Napoleon  had 
resolved  to  marry  the  archduchess. 

Marie  Louise  was  not  beautiful,  but  at  eighteen  her  face 
had  a  definite  charm,  a  union  of  artlessness  and  perversity 
not  infrequent  in  girls  who  have  been  trained  in  convents. 
She  was  tall;  her  figure  was  shapely.  Her  sensual  mouth 
curved  upwards  at  the  corners  in  a  way  which  gave  it  a 
striking  resemblance  to  the  mouth  of  Pauline  Borghese; 
but  she  had  beautiful  ears,  small  and  finely  whorled. 
Pauline's  were  flat,  "the  ears  of  a  monkey  on  the  head  of 
an  angel,"  and  therefore  hidden  always  by  bandelettes. 
To  suppose  that  Bonaparte  was  uninfluenced  by  the  high 
birth  and  sensuous  charm  of  the  archduchess  is  to  take  the 
thing  that  is  not  for  the  thing  that  is.  There  was  still  a 
remnant  of  Lucien  de  Rubempre  in  the  all-adventurer,  the 
all-conquerer.  To  the  Emperor  the  Habsburg  marriage 
was  not  more  dazzling  than  had  been  the  Beauharnais  mar- 
riage to  the  general;  but  it  was  as  dazzling. 

Duroc's  mind,  working  in  these  directions,  listening  to 
the  profound  silences,  was  suddenly  traversed  by  a  bizarre 
idea.  Was  it  credible  that  in  the  selection  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet  Napoleon  had  intended  to  suggest  in  the  feud  of  the 
Montagues  and  Capulets  the  evils  that  might  result  from 
the  feud  of  the  Bonapartes  and  Habsburgs?  On  momentous 
occasions  Napoleon  did  nothing  without  intention.  At 
Erfurt,  as  Duroc  very  well  knew,  every  play  staged  by 
Dazincourt,  Denon's  predecessor,  had  been  selected  by 
the  Emperor;  he  knew  very  well  that  Athalie  had  been  re- 
jected lest  it  should  prompt  some  German  Joash;  that 
Mithridate  had  been  selected  because  the  Pontic  king's 
unyielding  hatred  of  Rome  portrayed  Bonaparte's  unyield- 


272  Schonbrunn 

ing  hatred  of  England;  that  Mohamet  similarly  had  been 
chosen  because  of  the  famous  verses — 

"Les  mortels  sont  e"gaux,  ce  n'est  point  la  naissance, 
C'est  la  seule  vertu  qui  fait  la  difference. 
II  est  de  ces  esprits  favorise's  des  cieux 
Qui  sont  tout  par  eux-m&nes  et  rien  par  leurs  aieux." 

He  knew  that  imperial  orders  had  even  been  given  to  the 
actors  and  actresses — Talma,  Lafon,  Saint  Prix,  and  mes- 
demoiselles  Gros,  Duchesnois,  Patrat,  and  Rose  Depuys — to 
pronounce  certain  passages  applicable  to  Napoleon  with 
unusual  solemnity  and  emphasis. 

Nevertheless,  Duroc  felt  that  a  direct  allusion  to  the 
play  of  to-night  or  an  overt  comparison  of  Napoleon  to 
Romeo  would  at  once  shock  the  Emperor's  sense  and  good 
taste.  He  therefore  said  tentatively: 

"Sire,  your  Majesty  is  still  the  youngest  monarch  in 
Europe " 

"The  Czar  is  eight  years  younger, "  Napoleon  interjected 
curtly.  "Yet  I  would  know  happiness,  Duroc.  I  have 
had  enough  of  glory;  I  would  know  domestic  happiness,  old 
comrade — if  at  nine  and  thirty  happiness  is  still  possible  to 
man. " 

Inadvertently  Napoleon  had  made  himself  a  year  younger 
than  he  was  generally  supposed  to  be.  Duroc  observed 
this  and  drew  his  own  inferences,  but  said  nothing. 

"My  talk  with  M.  Goethe  at  Erfurt  made  me  read  Wer- 
ther  again.  There  you  have  youthful  love  drawn  by  a 
master  hand.  Those  others,  they  do  not  know  what  youth- 
ful love  means.  They  have  never  felt  it,  how  then  can  they 
depict  it?  Look  at  that  piece  to-night.  Nothing  could 
be  more  untrue  to  nature,  nothing  more  loutish  and  unclean. 
How  can  an  Italian  like  Zingarelli,  the  countryman  of 
Petrarch  and  Tasso,  permit  that  buffoon  Shakespeare 
thus  to  sully,  thus  to  disfigure  the  most  sacred  of  our  senti- 


Napoleon's  Dream  273 

ments?  But  a  nation  like  England,  dead  to  political  honour, 
is  dead  also  to  sensibility  and  to  moral  honour." 

Rancour  had  returned  to  his  voice,  but  in  a  lighter  tone 
he  resumed: 

"Eh  bien,  in  this  play,  Juliet  is  an  innocent  girl  of  fifteen 
or  sixteen.  What  are  her  ideas  and  her  language  upon  love? 
They  are  the  ideas  and  language  of  a  street- walker !  Are 
English  girls  indeed  like  this?  We  have  the  authority  of 
the  greatest  English  poet  and  the  applause  of  the  British 
mob  to  testify  that  this  is  their  character.  But  the  whole 
race  is  demi-savage  still,  and  I  had  no  more  compunction  in 
arresting  ten  thousand  of  them  at  the  rupture  of  the  Peace 
of  Amiens  than  I  would  have  had  in  arresting  the  ten 
thousand  Cossacks  who  cut  off  the  ears  and  noses  of  their 
prisoners  at  Austerlitz.  Outside  science,  what  writer  of 
refinement  except  Richardson  has  England  produced?" 

Duroc  mentioned  Ossian.  For  in  1809,  in  Vienna  as  in 
Dresden  and  Paris,  Fingal  and  Temora  were  still  the  vogue 
and  at  the  baptismal  font  gave  names  to  a  generation 
of  Mai  vines  and  Oscars. 

Napoleon's  answer  was  categoric. 

' '  Ossian  is  not  an  Englishman :  he  is  a  Gael.  If  Ossian  had 
written  in  French  I  would  have  made  him  a  prince.  But 
your  Shakespeare,"  he  said  with  a  brusque  laugh,  "I  would 
have  made  him  a  groom.  His  ideas  reek  of  the  stables." 

And  to  Duroc's  astonishment,  for  during  the  performance 
the  Emperor  for  the  most  part  had  appeared  listless  or  half- 
asleep,  Napoleon  cited  two  of  Juliet's  speeches  to  prove  the 
coarseness  or  brutishness  of  Shakespeare's  mind. 

The  criticism  was  just.  Duroc  could  not  defend  the 
excerpts. 

"It  is  English,  your  Majesty,"  he  said  with  a  shrug. 
"The  women  of  that  nation  drink  beer  and  brandy.  My 
cousin,  M.  le  comte  d'Herisson,  has  lived  amongst  them. " 

"Yes,   but  why  has  Zingarelli  reprinted  the  outrage? 

18 


274  Schonbrunn 

Youth  is  the  age  of  noble  illusions.  Each  day  a  new  world 
of  enchantment  opens  before  the  mind.  He  who  destroys 
this  enchantment  is  an  enemy  of  the  human  race.  And 
youthful  love — how  beautiful  it  is,  Duroc!  Ethereal, 
flying  everything  gross,  standing  at  the  holiest  distances 
from  its  adoration.  Its  existence  is  that  of  the  phcenix. 
It  lives  for  days  upon  a  smile.  A  word  transports  it  to  the 
highest  heaven,  drives  it  into  solitude,  to  devour  in  jealous 
seclusion  the  memory  of  its  own  bliss. " 

Napoleon's  face  had  become  extraordinary  in  its  mo- 
bility ;  letting  himself  go,  his  countenance,  his  eyes,  his  lips, 
expressed  every  nuance  of  the  emotions  which  rapt  him — 
anger,  tendresse,  exaltation,  reverie,  scorn,  the  blackness  of 
hate.  Duroc  thought  of  those  watches  whose  glass  faces 
reveal  the  works. 

"Even  Werther  sometimes  errs  in  this  respect.  Goethe 
promised  me  to  amend  the  paragraphs.  I  am  told  that 
Werther  is  laughed  at  in  England?  The  savages  in  New 
Caledonia  would  laugh  at  it  also.  The  women  are  all 
Juliets  there !  Youthful  love ! ' ' 

He  spoke  a  woman's  name.  Duroc  could  not  hear  it 
distinctly. 

Napoleon  walked  twice  across  the  room,  sunk  in  reverie, 
then  said: 

"We  knew  together,  she  and  I,  the  true,  the  hallowed 
sentiment.  And  what  was  our  sanctifying  hour,  uplifting 
us  to  the  crystal  heaven  of  felicity?  I  will  tell  you.  old 
comrade,  for  I  live  it  now,  and  it  is  twenty-four  years  ago. 
It  was  a  morning  in  June.  We  were  sitting  in  an  arbour. 
The  summer  dew  was  still  on  the  grass.  I  could  see  each 
print  her  light  foot  had  made  on  the  silver  lace  across  the 
lawn.  The  murmur  of  bees  was  around,  and  the  scent  of 
myrtle  and  syringa  was  in  the  air.  Once  a  butterfly  settled 
near  her  hand.  I  too  could  have  mistaken  that  hand  for  a 
flower.  Time  fled,  struggling  with  our  heart-beats  in  speed. 


Napoleon's  Dream  275 

The  sun  climbed,  touching  first  her  hair,  then  the  damask  of 
her  cheek.  We  scarcely  spoke,  but  sitting  a  little  way  apart, 
we  now  and  then  ate  a  cherry  from  the  same  branch.  And 
my  ambition  then,  Duroc?  The  ravening  ambition  that 
Europe  now  curses?  My  ambition  was  to  die  young,  to 
die  unknown,  wept  only  by  her." 

Duroc  shifted  uneasily  in  his  chair.  He  was  embarrassed ; 
he  was  "out  of  it. "  He  felt  like  Sancho  Panza  listening  to 
some  high-pitched  harangue  of  Don  Quixote.  He  had  no 
memories  of  this  kind.  He  had  never  sat  beside  his  maiden 
and  in  still  rapture  eaten  cherries  from  the  same  branch. 
He  saw  that  it  would  be  fatuous  to  ask  for  explanations, 
still  more  fatuous  to  murmur  assent.  Therefore  he  said 
nothing,  but  sat  with  a  military  precision,  attentive. 

A  swift  change  in  the  Emperor's  demeanour  relieved  him. 

"  Now, "  Napoleon  resumed,  "  I  shall  die  old;  diseased  and 
used  up,  and  go  down  like  a  ship  amid  the  roarings  of  a 
tempest  that  is  the  execration  of  a  world !  But  Austria  shall 
accept  my  terms  or  I  will  grind  it  to  powder  under  my  heel. 
I  have  been  at  Schonbrunn  four  months.  I  have  dwelt 
much  upon  the  past,  pondering  the  future.  Strange  ideas 
have  come  to  me.  What  is  past,  present,  and  future  to  men 
such  as  I  am  ?  A  chaos  out  of  which  we  hew  colossal  shapes. 
I  am  only  in  part  the  result  of  my  environment.  I  should 
have  achieved  greatness  had  the  Bastille  never  fallen,  had 
the  Bourbon  monarchy  still  stood.  For  I  have  integrated 
my  ideals, "  he  went  on,  with  an  abrupt  diversion  of  manner 
and  employing  an  energetic  metaphor  derived  from  his  early 
studies  of  d'Alembert  and  the  higher  mathematics,  "Un- 
like the  eagle  which  sheds  its  beak,  I  have  conserved  every 
role,  metamorphosed  indeed,  but  vital  in  me  and  vitalizing 
still.  I  began  as  a  royalist  officer  and  an  Ajaccian  patriot. 
But  Corsica  was  small;  France  was  no  mother-country  of 
mine,  but  France  was  great,  and,  at  that  hour,  bleeding  to 
death.  I  resolved  to  save  France  and  on  Vendemiaire 


276  Schonbrunn 

and  at  Rivoli  I  set  her  above  danger.  But  I  could  not 
rest.  My  fate  drove  me  onwards.  Other  men  have  luck — 
Marmont,  Ney,  Junot,  Mass6na.  Such  good  fortune  is 
unstable  and  exterior;  but  my  fate  is  from  within,  present 
and  resistless.  It  watches  whilst  I  sleep;  and  whilst  I  am 
absent  in  thought  or  dull,  it  brings  my  plans  to  a  glorious 
issue.  Thus  I  entered  Egypt  a  soldier,  but  returned  the 
Man  of  Destiny.  I  legislated  for  Europe.  I  made  myself 
Emperor,  still  integrating  my  ideals;  for  royalist  officer, 
Corsican  insurgent,  Jacobin  commander-in-chief,  Man  of 
Destiny,  legislator  and  emperor — I  am  them  all.  But  now? 
I  nowhere  see  the  end,  and  I  might  as  well  attempt  to  stay  a 
planet  with  my  finger  as  seek  to  check  the  onward-rushing 
of  my  fate." 

"At  Gottingen, "  Napoleon  resumed,  after  a  brief  silence, 
"and  at  Berlin,  the  professors  style  me  the  modern  Attila, 
Genghis,  Timour,  que  scais-je?  Let  them  beware  lest  I 
become  the  thing  they  name!  Something  in  me  here " 

He  touched  his  breast. 

"Something  here  is  at  work.  Nothing  shakes  my  fore- 
bodings. My  enemies  may  force  on  me  an  unheard-of 
r61e.  Others  before  me  have  written  out  their  life-hate 
in  ink;  I  will  write  mine  in  blood.  The  world  reads 
their  satires  and  trembles.  Mine  shall  strike  them  with 
madness. " 

"God  forbid,  your  Majesty."  Duroc  broke  in  vehe- 
mently. "  This  shall  never  be.  You  are  the  instrument  of 
Providence,  Sire." 

"God?  Providence?"  Napoleon  sharply  interrupted 
with  a  shrug  and  a  sidelong  look  at  his  minister.  "  I  get  on 
very  well  without  those  fantasies — ces  ide*es-la.  What  is  it 
you  intend  by  that  word  'God,'  you  others?  Hein?  Let 
us  talk  of  that  a  little. " 

Sitting  down,  he  looked  at  Duroc  in  sardonic  curiosity. 

"Your  Majesty,  I  did  not  of  course  mean " 


Napoleon's  Dream  277 

To  Duroc,  the  feast  to  the  Supreme  Being  had  repre- 
sented, under  all  its  travesty,  a  living  idea.  He  found  it, 
however,  singularly  difficult  to  express  to  Napoleon  in  what 
way  he  regarded  him  as  the  instrument  of  Providence. 

"We  use  the  word  'God'  so  glibly,"  Napoleon  said  pen- 
sively. "I  am  not  guiltless  on  that  count  myself — in  my 
public  utterances,  for  example,  or  when  I  write  to  my  bish- 
ops or  to  that  old  fox  Pius  VII.,  or  to  that  imbecile  Fesch, 
my  step-uncle,  whom  I  have  just  made  Archbishop  of 
Lyons.  But  to-night,  Duroc,  at  this  dead  hour,  what  is 
that  word  between  you  and  me?  The  occasions  when 
it  is  worth  while  speaking  the  truth  are  rare;  the  men 
capable  of  understanding  it  are  rarer,  and  rarest  of  all 
are  the  men  whom  one  respects  enough  to  speak  the  truth 
to  them.  God,  we  say,  is  not  this  table,  this  sofa,  not  that 
forest,  nor  those  mountains,  not  the  stars  nor  yet  the  ether, 
not  you,  nor  Rustum,  nor  Josephine,  nor  I.  He  is  not 
even  William  Pitt.  Enfin,  what  is  He?  He  is  the  Abso- 
lute, these  German  ideologues  affirm,  the  Infinite,  the  Un- 
changing, the  Unconditioned.  All  'nots, '  row  on  row  of 
negatives!  In  fact,  if  we  are  to  believe  the  religions  and 
the  philosophies,  He  is  everything — except  everything  that 
is!  I  should  look  upon  myself  as  an  idiot,  if  in  my  negoti- 
ations with  Austria  I  swerved  a  hair's-breadth  to  right  or 
left  for  such  chimeras.  As  for  God's  so-called  omnipotence 
— I  could  in  ten  minutes  conceive  ten  more  perfect  universes. 
No,  Monge  and  Lagrange  are  right.  Matter  is  its  own 
explanation,  its  own  reason,  its  own  cause,  its  own  final  end, 
its  own  destiny  in  a  word — as  I  am. " 

"I  cling  to  immortality,  Sire — to  a  meeting  au-dela,  in  the 
hereafter." 

"With  whom?"  was  the  startling  answer.  "Your 
wife?" 

Duroc  laughed  awkwardly,  and  in  his  awkwardness  said 
a  cruel  word  which  was  not  spoken  before  it  was  regretted: 


278  Schonbrunn 

"Lannes,  perhaps." 

"Ah!" 

Deeply  agitated,  Napoleon  struggled  to  speak,  half  rose, 
sank  back — tearing  at  the  arm  of  the  sofa. 

Duroc  had  touched  too  raw  a  wound. 

"Yes,"  Napoleon  said  with  a  heavy  sigh,  "I  should  like 
to  meet  Lannes  again — for  a  short  time;  but  not  forever, 
not  even  Lannes.  And  would  he  be  glad  to  meet  me  at  all, 
Duroc?  Would  he  be  glad  to  see  the  man  for  whom  he  died, 
Duroc?" 

Duroc  observed  that  the  hand  which  was  tearing  at  the 
embroidery  had  begun  to  tremble. 

"Lannes?  Lannes?  Not  glad  to  see  you,  Sire?  I 
know  he  would  be,  your  Majesty." 

"As  for  that'seeing  of  God  face  to  face,"  Napoleon  went 
on,  caught  in  the  meshes  of  his  first  idea,  and  always  eager 
to  reason  against  any  unreason,  "to  what  end?  I  ask  my- 
self. What  are  we  to  do  when  we  have  once  seen  Him? 
And  what  are  we  to  think  of  a  God  who  for  a  thousand 
million  years  will  make  Himself  a  gazing-stock  to  His  crea- 
tures? I  have  had  the  stare  of  men  for  ten  years  and 
already  I  begin  to  be  a  little  sick  of  it. " 

There  was  an  abrupt  silence. 

"It  is  late,  old  comrade, "  Napoleon  said,  stifling  a  yawn. 
"We  both  need  sleep." 

Duroc  got  up  at  once. 

"Sire,  I  wish  your  Majesty  a  refreshing  night." 

"Remain!" 

It  was  the  Emperor,  not  the  "old  comrade,"  who  spoke 
that  command. 

Duroc  came  back. 

"Who  presides  at  the  court-martial  to-morrow?" 

"What  court-martial,  your  Majesty?" 

Duroc's  mind  in  the  whirl  of  immense  problems  of  State 
and  thought  had  drifted  far  indeed  from  the  obscure  German 


Napoleon's  Dream  279 

boy  who  that  morning  had  so  nearly  placed  his  name,  not 
beside  the  hideous  glory  of  Ravaillac,  but  within  the  im- 
mortal splendour  which  falls  on  the  names  of  Brutus  and  of 
Tell. 

"Have  you  forgotten?  The  court-martial  which  tries 
that  madman." 

The  minister  hesitated.  He  knew  very  well  that  the 
court-martial,  its  members,  and  its  president,  would  be  se- 
lected by  one  man  only;  he  knew  also  that  the  judicial  form 
and  procedure,  the  witnesses  to  be  summoned,  the  judges, 
the  place,  the  hour,  the  sentence,  and  the  manner  of  its 
execution,  would  be  determined  by  that  same  man;  but 
in  a  second  he  perceived  that,  as  in  the  cases  of  d'Enghien 
and  Palm,  Napoleon  wished  to  remain  in  the  background. 

"The  due  de  Rovigo,  Sire,"  he  answered  at  length,  "or 
General  Hulin." 

Napoleon's  face  remained  unmoved. 

Savary?     Hulin? 

The  names  were  ominous. 

Hulin  had  presided  over  the  midnight  tribunal  which 
condemned  the  Due  d'Enghien,  and  throughout  the  sinister 
scene  Savary  had  stood  behind  the  president's  chair,  affecting 
the  judges,  affecting  the  scanty  spectators,  like  a  portentous 
shadow  of  the  implacable  watcher  in  the  Tuileries,  waiting 
whilst  the  crime  moved  to  its  consummation. 

Napoleon's  face  betrayed  nothing  of  his  thoughts. 

"The  due  de  Rovigo — General  Hulin,"  he  said  at  length, 
with  an  ambiguous  glance  at  Duroc;  "Mais  oui." 

But  detaining  Duroc  by  a  mere  attitude  rather  than  by  a 
gesture,  Napoleon  said  again: 

"See  the  prisoner  yourself.  Savary 's  patibulary  counte- 
nance terrifies  the  unexperienced.  Rapp  is  honest  but 
obtuse.  You,  on  the  other  hand,  have  sensibility;  you 
have  finesse.  Reason  with  him;  speak  to  him  of  his  father 
and  mother,  of  the  books  he  reads,  his  hopes,  his  sweetheart. 


280  Schonbrunn 

Get  him  to  confide  in  you.  Has  he  accomplices  in  Paris, 
in  Vienna,  or  anywhere?  Upon  that  head  I  am  not  satis- 
fied. I  must  know  all." 

In  an  altered  voice  he  added: 

"It  is  as  easy  for  me  to  kill  this  boy  as  it  is  to  speak  the 
word.  Yet  to-night,  I  am  perplexed,  drawn  this  way  and 
that  by  more  conflicting  purposes,  by  more  intricate  specu- 
lations than  the  night  before  a  battle.  Yet  he  too  must  ful- 
fil his  destiny.  He  has  elected  himself  my  antagonist. 
Who  knows?  For  him  this  is  perhaps  the  greatest.  Death 
is  never  the  worst  of  evils." 

"It  is  the  goodness  of  your  heart  that  makes  you  pause, 
Sire.  I  will  see  the  prisoner,  but  I  think  we  shall  discover 
nothing. " 

"My  heart  has  nothing  to  do  with  this,"  Napoleon  an- 
swered drily.  "It  is  my  reason;  it  is  my  will.  I  consider 
what  is  wisest  and  most  auspicious  for  this  subtle  war  which 
to-day  my  enemies  have  unmasked.  That  is  all.  They 
are  poisoning  the  wells.  It  is  a  dangerous  device  even  in 
war." 

Duroc,  as  Napoleon  had  just  said  of  him,  had  sensibility 
and  kindness,  but  to-night,  all  seemed  as  nothing  beside 
the  drama  and  mighty  purposes  of  which  he  had  been  made 
the  spectator  and  the  confidant.  The  assassin's  guilt  was 
manifest.  After  so  heinous  an  attempt,  what  was  the  death 
of  an  obscure  German  lad?  His  blood  would  scarcely  stain 
more  of  mother-earth  than  a  mouse's.  To  hesitate?  It 
was  as  though,  in  some  onset  of  irreflective  pity,  one  were 
to  hesitate  to  kill  a  tiny  but  noxious  insect.  Let  the  God 
who  made  such  insects  take  care  of  them. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE  MASKED    BALL 


MEANWHILE,  in  Vienna  itself,  within  the  old  palace 
of  the  Habsburgs,  the  masked  ball  organized  by 
Count  Andreossy  continued  its  course.  At  midnight  it 
was  already  crowded,  and  the  guests  had  increased  rather 
than  diminished  in  numbers  as  the  night  wore  on.  They 
now  included  several  of  the  greatest  names  in  Vienna. 

Vienna,  even  in  captivity,  was  still  the  centre  of  European 
elegance  and  of  the  arts.  Men  and  women  in  her  public 
assemblies  had  the  consciousness  that  higher  than  this  spot 
none  could  look ;  that  towards  Vienna  and  her  f£  tes  all  other 
cities  looked — Petersburg,  Berlin,  Paris,  London. 

Andreossy,  as  governor  of  Vienna,  had  devised  this  ball, 
and  its  success  pleased  his  vanity.  He  had  always  been 
a  persona  grata  in  Viennese  society  of  the  first  rank ;  he  now 
heard  or  overheard  his  "amiability"  celebrated;  he  heard 
or  overheard  such  assertions  as — "After  all,  Andr6ossy 
is  a  gentleman;  whilst  Murat  or  Hulin  or  Bernadotte — " 
(former  governors  or  ambassadors)  "  Well,  from  such  mush- 
rooms what  except  mushroom  manners  could  one  expect?" 
The  ball,  in  addition  to  this  sop  to  his  vanity,  scored  for 
Andreossy  a  political  victory  over  his  rival,  Maret.  The 
latter  had  remained  the  journalist  he  was  when  Napoleon  in 
1799  "discovered"  his  powers  and  won  his  limitless  if  indis- 

281 


282  Schonbrunn 

creet  devotion.  He  had  still  the  journalist's  eye  for  a  sen- 
sation, however  coarse  or  compromising,  and  when  in  the 
negotiations  with  Liechtenstein  there  occurred  the  ominous 
hitch  of  September  22nd,  he  urged  his  master,  by  the  seizure 
of  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  Austrian  army,  to  force 
Francis  II.  to  his  knees.  Napoleon  refused  point-blank 
but  he  did  not  intervene  when  Maret,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Austrian  envoys,  insinuated  blusteringly — If  the  Austrian 
commander  had  not  come  to  Vienna  as  a  hostage,  why  then 
had  he  come  at  all? 

Andre"ossy,  annoyed  by  Maret's  grossness,  had  derided  his 
plan. 

"Detain  the  ambassadors, "  he  said  to  Napoleon.  " It  is 
what  Austria  and  your  enemies  wait  for,  Sire.  A  hundred 
Palafoxes  will  start  from  the  ranks  of  Germany;  Hungary 
will  become  an  armed  camp;  and  in  every  fortress  we  shall 
have  a  siege  of  Saragossa." 

As  a  means  of  allaying  the  uneasiness  that  the  indiscre- 
tions of  the  old  redacteur  of  the  Moniteur  had  created, 
Andr6ossy  proposed  his  own  plan.  Let  the  requisitions  and 
house-to-house  searches,  he  urged,  be  relaxed  or  suspended ; 
let  the  great  families,  by  a  feeling  of  security,  be  enticed 
back  to  the  capital,  and  the  belief  in  an  immediate  signature 
of  the  treaty  be  encouraged;  above  all  let  Napoleon's  plans 
for  paralyzing  Austria's  issue  of  paper  money  be  kept 
the  most  rigorous  secret.  Francis  II. 's  vacillating  ami- 
ability, his  naive  pleasure  in  hearing  himself  styled  "the 
Father  of  his  people, "  would  then  make  it  certain,  Andre"- 
ossy  argued,  that  he  would  accept  Napoleon's  terms;  for  he 
would  never  have  the  resolution  to  face  the  city's  and  the 
nation's  disappointment. 

Andre'ossy,  by  this  counsel,  had  done,  he  considered,  a 
real  service  to  Napoleon  and  a  service  that  he  alone  could 
have  rendered. 

The  first  part  of  the  scheme  had  been  a  success.     During 


The  Masked  Ball  283 

the  following  weeks  numbers  of  the  smaller  nobility  and 
several  of  the  greater  families  had  returned  to  the  capital. 
The  peace  became  a  foregone  conclusion.  The  date  and 
terms,  it  was  understood,  alone  were  in  dubiety. 

In  his  project  of  a  court  ball,  Andreossy  encountered 
greater  difficulties.  He  was,  it  is  true,  the  temporary  mas- 
ter of  the  Hofburg,  the  Imperial  palace  in  the  heart  of  the 
city,  as  Napoleon  was  the  master  of  Schonbrunn,  the 
Imperial  palace  outside  the  walls,  and,  as  master  of  his 
palace,  he  might  issue  what  invitations  he  pleased.  But 
how  was  he  to  induce  the  Viennese  to  accept  those  invita- 
tions? What  Austrian  would  attend  a  banquet  or  a  dance 
in  the  royal  palace  when  the  master  of  that  palace  was  in 
exile  at  Totis,  a  hundred  and  twenty  miles  away? 

"We  shall  see,"  Andreossy  thought  with  a  shrug. 

The  situation  by  its  very  niceness  attracted  him.  It 
gave  him  the  opportunity  of  displaying  just  that  social  tact 
which  neither  Napoleon  nor  any  man  in  his  suite  possessed. 

He  had  set  to  work  at  once.  As  a  preliminary  he  had  had 
the  hospital  for  the  wounded  in  the  Hofgarten  removed. 
Two  regiments  quartered  till  now  in  the  precincts  were 
moved  to  the  Leopoldstadt.  Finally,  as  by  an  oversight, 
a  large  portion  of  the  Imperial  plate  was  restored  to  the 
treasury. 

Andre"ossy  then  proposed  of  himself  that  an  Austrian 
committee  should  be  nominated;  that  this  committee,  hav- 
ing secured  the  approval  of  Totis,  should  control  every 
invitation,  subject  only  to  Andreossy 's  scrutiny — "a  mere 
formality. " 

"After  all,  it  is  no  longer  a  secret,"  he  said  gaily  to 
Sturmer.  "Vienna  is  not  empty  if  you  are  in  it.  How 
are  you  all  to  pass  the  time?  The  wines,  if  not  plentiful, 
will  be,  like  the  ladies,  of  the  very  first  quality.  And  what 
else  matters?" 

At  Vienna,  as  at  Buda,  boredom  had  reached  its  height. 


284  Schonbrunn 

Was  a  banquet  or  a  dance  at  the  palace,  it  was  asked,  any 
greater  scandal  than  the  archbishop  of  Vienna  and  the 
heads  of  the  religious  orders  assembling  in  St.  Stephen's 
two  months  ago  to  celebrate  the  Corsican's  birthday? 

The  Emperor  Francis  II.  gave  his  consent  and  that  con- 
sent was  a  command.  Neither  Nugent  nor  Count  O'Reilly 
nor  Metternich  had  said  a  word  in  opposition.  Metternich, 
indeed,  twenty  years  afterwards,  claimed  as  usual  that  in 
Andre"ossy's  banquet  he  had  "foreseen"  Napoleon's  design; 
but  in  no  contemporary  record  or  gossip  is  there  a  trace  of 
this  foresight. 

The  Austrian  committee,  probably  with  Andre*ossy's 
connivance,  secured  an  initial  victory.  It  decreed  that, 
whether  the  peace  were  signed  or  not  signed,  the  ball  on  the 
1 3th  October  should  not  be  a  court  ball,  Hofball,  but 
simply  a  "ball  at  the  court, "  Ball  bei  hof;  and  that  it  should 
take  place,  not  in  the  Redoutensaal,  built  by  Charles  VI.,  the 
father  of  Maria  Theresa,  but  in  the  Rittersaal,  constructed 
a  few  years  previously  by  Francis  II.  himself;  that  the 
invited  guests  should  be  only  the  e*lite  of  Austrian  society  or 
such  representatives  of  "foreign  nations"  as  had  the  neces- 
sary number  of  quarterings. 

This  decree  ruled  out  as  "undesirables"  nearly  every 
outstanding  name  in  Napoleon's  entourage.  Marshals  and 
generals,  dukes,  princes,  counts,  and  barons,  members  of 
the  Legion  of  Honour,  members  of  the  Senate  and  Corps 
Legislatif,  were  erased  pell-mell  amid  the  guttural  or 
crystalline  laughter  of  Viennese  ladies  of  fashion. 

"Parvenus  to  a  man,  ma  cherie!" 

On  Wednesday,  the  nth  October,  a  whisper  went  the 
round  of  the  city  that  Napoleon  himself  had  been  "black- 
balled"— "English  clubs"  were  becoming  a  fashion  in 
Vienna  as  in  Petersburg.  A  sting  was  added  to  the  jest  by 
the  postscript  that  the  committee  had  arrived  at  this  de- 
cision very  unwillingly;  for,  by  the  marriage  of  his  stepson, 


The  Masked  Ball  285 

the  "  black-boule* "  was  connected  with  the  great  House  of 
Wittelsbach! 

It  was  imbecile;  it  was  childish;  yet  for  the  moment  it 
pleased  Vienna.  It  seemed  the  revenge  of  the  old  regime, 
here  in  Marie  Antoinette's  early  home,  amid  the  society 
that  had  never  ceased  to  resent  her  martyrdom.  "You 
may  insult,  imprison,  impoverish,  or  guillotine  us,"  it  seemed 
to  say,  "but  you  cannot  become  one  of  us.  You  are 
brave  soldiers,  but  you  are  of  another  caste  than  ours;  you 
are  parvenus,  that  is,  pariahs." 

To  some  of  the  French  it  was  simply  puzzling;  to  many  it 
was  annoying;  to  others  galling;  but  the  fact  was  incontro- 
vertible. 

With  the  marshals  and  generals  who  chose  to  be  affronted, 
and  still  more  with  such  of  their  wives  as  had  come  to 
Vienna,  Andre'ossy  had  need  of  all  his  boasted  tact  and  social 
diplomacy. 

"Que  voulez-vous?  It  is  a  Viennese  affair,"  he  said 
suavely,  his  hands  thrown  wide,  his  broad  smooth  counte- 
nance wreathed  in  deprecatory  smiles.  ' '  Poor  devils !  Pride 
in  birth  is  their  fetish;  ours  is  glory.  In  Paris,  beauty  or  wit 
is  a  woman's  passport  to  good  society;  but  in  Vienna?  It  is 
fifteen  quarterings,  three  lovers,  and  thirty  thousand  a  year!" 

More  perspicacious  observers  amongst  the  French  them- 
selves, men  like  Favrol  and  Latour-Maubourg,  made  the 
comment  that  glory  was  no  longer  the  prerogative  of  the 
Revolutionary  armies;  that  those  same  Austrians  who,  in 
Andreossy's  phrase,  still  worshipped  the  obsolete  feudal 
fetishes,  claimed  Aspern-Essling  as  a  victory  and  Wagram 
as  "a  drawn  battle." 

Napoleon  himself  was  not  displeased.  His  malice  was 
piqued.  It  brought  home  to  his  officers,  these  marshals, 
dukes,  counts,  and  generals,  their  dependence  on  himself; 
he  had  made  them ;  this  was  a  rebuff  to  their  ingratitude  and 
their  eagerness  to  forget  their  creator. 


286  Schonbrunn 

The  riot  at  the  Opera  had,  on  the  very  night  of  the  ball, 
caused  Andre"ossy  some  alarm;  but  long  before  midnight 
that  alarm  was  dissipated. 

His  fete  was  a  complete  triumph. 

II 

Rentzdorf  and  Amalie  had  remained  together  in  her 
rooms  in  the  Palazzo  Esterthal  to  the  latest  possible  hour. 

They  had  heard  the  heavy  notes  of  St.  Stephen's  strike 
midnight.  Now  it  was  striking  two. 

"You  must  go,"  she  said  reluctantly.  "Already  to- 
night is  to-morrow." 

It  had  been  arranged  that  when  they  separated  she  was 
to  drive  straight  to  the  Rittersaal,  he  to  cross  Vienna  and, 
using  his  privilege  as  an  unmarried  officer,  put  on  civilian 
clothes,  and  rejoin  her  an  hour  and  a  half  later  for  the  end  of 
the  court  ball. 

"Unless "  she  now  said,  as  she  released  her  lover. 

"The  guet-apens  of  Vienna  come  after  that  of  Bayonne? " 
Rentzdorf  said  moodily.  "No;  it  is  unthinkable.  There 
is  a  limit  to  Bonaparte's  treachery.  I  shall  see  you  in  an 
hour." 

The  words  which  Amalie  had  suppressed  were  the  words, 
"Unless — there  is  war,  and,  as  a  preliminary,  Liechtenstein, 
you,  and  every  other  officer  of  his  suite  are  made  prisoners. " 

"What  did  that  riot  at  the  Opera  portend?"  she  asked, 
walking  to  and  fro  in  the  odorous  dusk  of  her  room. 

"Nothing.  I  saw  it  begin  and  saw  it  end.  It  was  the 
usual  strawfire;  Gallic  effervescence.  Dearest,  I  am  per- 
fectly safe." 

Rentzdorf  spoke  more  confidently  than  he  felt.  He 
loathed  Metternich's  insinuations  of  contemplated  foul 
play;  the  hero  in  himself  responded  to  the  hero  in  Bona- 
parte; he  knew  his  essential  greatness,  but  he  knew  also  the 


The  Masked  Ball  287 

temptation  of  Liechtenstein's  presence  in  Vienna.  The 
Habsburg  Commander-in-chief,  the  greatest  cavalry  leader 
of  Austria,  was  in  the  enemy's  camp. 

Silent,  he  walked  beside  her  to  and  fro  in  this  room, 
listening  to  the  vast  stillness  of  night  or  to  the  imperceptible 
murmur  of  the  trees;  "her  trees"  he  called  them,  hers,  for 
day  by  day,  week  by  week,  in  summer's  luxuriance  or  in 
winter's  disarray,  her  eyes  at  dawn  rested  on  their  foliage 
or  their  stems. 

To  Rentzdorf  nothing  could  dim  the  sanctitude  nor 
lessen  the  seduction  of  Amalie's  chamber — those  carpets, 
which,  like  Calypso  in  her  grotto,  smelling  of  amaranth  and 
lilies,  she  trod  night  by  night  in  unembarrassed  nakedness; 
that  furniture,  those  cabinets,  those  vases  and  ornaments. 
Incensed  by  her  breathing,  this  square  of  space  had  grown, 
like  a  dress  she  had  worn,  a  mystic  extension  of  her  person 
and  of  her  life. 

"  Is  it  not  frightful,  Heinrich?  You  and  I,  born  into  this 
era;  our  entire  life  maledict  by  war. " 

Shuddering,  she  drew  him  closer  to  her  side. 

"Be  patient  with  me,"  she  said  in  a  beseeching  yet 
steady  voice.  "I  am  made  of  fears  to-night.  This  bliss 
has  been  too  great.  The  death-thirst,  born  of  the  highest 
life-thirst,  God's  death-thirst  mine,  yours,  do  I  not  know  it 
now,  Heinrich,  do  I  not  know  it  now?" 

She  leaned  her  face  on  his  shoulder.  The  modelling  of  her 
shoulders,  the  curve  of  her  neck,  that  beauty  in  every  part 
of  her,  each  part  a  wonder  in  itself,  heightened  by  its 
relation  to  the  symmetry  and  wonder  of  her  whole  body, 
wrought  on  him  its  terrible  seduction,  starting  in  his  mind 
that  question  formulated  long  ago, — "God  destroys  this, 
in  world  on  world,  irreparably — what  must  then  be  the 
anguish  of  God?  I  who  know  my  own  anguish,  what  can  I 
know  of  His?" 

He  made  an  involuntary  movement. 


288  Schonbrunn 

"Do  not  go  yet,"  she  pleaded,  misinterpreting  the 
gesture,  and  with  a  swift  look  into  his  face  she  drew  him 
gently  to  the  window  and  leaned  beside  him  out  into  the 
night. 

At  first  all  was  formless  indistinctness — masses  of  trees 
and  beyond  the  trees  a  blackness  even  more  substantial 
that  might  be  houses  and  fortifications,  might  be  sepulchres. 
And  to  her  over-wrought  imagination  the  chaos  of  gloom 
prolonged  itself  unendingly.  Darkness  was  not  merely  the 
dead  earth's  shadow,  but  the  symbol  of  some  profounder 
blackness,  wide  as  nature  itself  and  the  beginning  of  things. 

"And  down  there,"  she  said  sombrely,  looking  towards 
the  bastion  which,  as  their  eyes  became  accustomed  to  the 
darkness,  outlined  itself  on  their  right,  "two  men  sit  who 
move  your  fate  and  my  fate  as  they  will ;  to-morrow  peace, 
or  to-morrow  war." 

"They  have  no  such  authority,  Amalie.  This  that  we 
know,  this  that  we  are,  this  that  living  we  shall  be,  what 
power  outside  itself  can  touch  or  change  it,  Amalie?" 

Silent,  he  stood  beside  her  silent,  her  white  resplendent 
arms  and  beautiful  clasped  hands  emerging  from  the  fringing 
lace  of  her  sleeves.  In  the  garden  below  the  stillness  and 
rest  were  so  extreme  that  the  leaves  that  fell  in  clusters  by 
day  had  now  ceased  to  fall.  The  trees  were  visible  thrones 
of  slumber.  The  scents  of  the  shrubs,  of  the  rose-beds  and 
heliotrope,  already  fading  and  blackening,  came  in  a  tide  of 
morbid  sweetness,  mixing  with  the  incense  of  her  shoulders 
and  of  her  hair. 

"Dearest,"  she  said  suddenly,  "dearest;  listen — oh, 
listen!" 

Above  the  darkness  of  the  garden  rose  a  faint  prolonged 
call;  then  another  and  another;  then,  most  spectral-like, 
detaching  itself  from  a  sycamore,  an  owl  glided  in  the 
direction  of  the  sombre  heavy  masses  westward. 

"They  come  here  from  the  Wiener  wood?"  he  asked. 


The  Masked  Ball  289 

"Not  always;  in  early  winter  when  hunger  drives  them. 
I  never  hear  them  hoot,"  she  said  with  a  happy  tremor  in 
her  voice,  "without  thinking  of  Monza.  I  used  there,  a 
white  owl  myself  with  large  eyes,  as  I  saw  myself  once  in 
a  glass,  to  watch  at  night  hour  by  hour.  That  was  in  my 
spindle-legged,  short-frocked  days." 

"Your  .  .  .  ?" 

"  I  was  a  Lombard  maiden,"  she  answered,  mimicking 
the  voice  of  Madame  Campi  as  Rhodumunda.  "Would 
you  have  loved  me  then?  Hold  me  to  you.  I  am  cold. " 

She  pressed  herself  against  him  in  a  slow  languid  caress. 

"Would  you  have  loved  me  then?"  she  repeated. 

And  as  in  a  mystic  pledge  of  death  she  wound  her  arms 
about  him ;  mouth  to  mouth  she  whispered : 

"In  an  hour!  How  I  love  you!  No;  let  me  kiss  you. 
In  an  hour,  and  in  that  hour  I  shall  have  lived  each  second 
of  these  two  hours,  a  thousand  times,  made  them  years  in 
my  thought." 

But  her  embrace,  despite  her  courageous  words,  was,  in 
its  struggling  hysteric  violence,  like  an  embrace  by  a  grave 
into  which  both  were  falling. 

Ill 

Under  the  open  sky  Rentzdorf  stood  for  some  seconds 
hesitating.  It  was  now  half-past  two.  The  distance  from 
the  Palazzo  Esterthal  to  his  lodging  in  the  Rothenthurm 
was,  by  the  ramparts,  nearly  three  miles;  but,  across  the 
inner  city,  less  than  two.  He  did  not  wish  to  be  seen  at 
the  Rittersaal  until  at  least  an  hour  or  an  hour  and  a  half 
after  Amalie's  arrival.  To  summon  a  hackney  in  this 
part  of  the  faubourgs  was  to  invite  scrutiny.  He  decided 
to  walk  to  his  lodging  and,  having  changed  his  clothes,  to 
drive  to  the  Hofburg. 

He  started  at  a  rapid  pace  and  entering  the  inner  city  by 


290  Schonbrunn 

the  Molker  bastion,  he  struck  south-eastward  across  the 
Graben. 

Rentzdorf  knew  no  moments  in  which  his  mind  yielded 
itself  so  absolutely  to  his  religion,  to  the  Tragic  Vision  of 
God,  as  those  moments  in  which  he  had  just  forced  himself 
from  the  awe  and  dominion  of  his  idolized  mistress. 

"Art's  eternities?"  he  reasoned.  "This  that  now  I  feel, 
this  that  now  I  know,  alone  is  worth  enternalizing.  What  is 
God's  highest  total  presence  in  her,  in  me,  if  it  is  not  this 
passion  that  I  struggle  to  utter,  this  ecstasy  that  I  shudder 
tore-imagine?" 

Like  chords  of  a  mystic  music  summoning  other  chords  to 
aid  them  in  forming  some  still  diviner  harmonies,  earlier 
unforgettable  hours  came  down  the  years  calling  to  this 
hour — hours  which  he  and  his  mistress  had  fixed  in  their 
memories,  now  by  the  gift  of  a  flower,  now  by  a  book  or  a 
jewel;  at  other  times  simply  by  the  hour's  own  natu- 
ral setting,  the  stillness  of  summer  woods,  a  garden,  a 
room  in  an  inn,  a  moon-rise  by  a  lake,  the  day's  chance 
environment. 

"Amalie  .  .  .  Amalie  von  Esterthal. " 

The  repetition  of  her  name  was  like  a  synthesis  of  the 
hours  passed  by  her  side.  Yes ;  it  was  in  such  hours,  remem- 
bered thus,  that  he  could  darkly  hazard  the  answer  to  the 
transporting  obsessant  question,  "What  is  Being?"  Yes,  it 
was  in  such  hours  as  these  that  the  still  more  dread  ques- 
tion, "What  is  God?"  subtly  possessed  the  entire  soul 
and  the  entire  universe,  and  redissolved  all  in  the  bliss  that 
was  before  Being  arose. 

"This,"  he  said  impatiently,  yet  in  awe,  "this  is  to  be 
God;  to  know  this;  to  feel  this. " 

Yes;  it  was  to  such  hours  as  these  that  he  could  say,  "Be 
thus  for  ever;  thou  art  so  fair. "  For  him,  for  her,  to  know 
in  their  own  fierce  but  unestranging  sorrow  the  world-soul's 
sorrow,  the  Calvary  of  Being,  then,  struggling,  resisting, 


The  Masked  Ball  291 

bleeding,  to  be  torn  inexorably  asunder — this  was  earth's 
meaning,  God's  meaning;  for  her,  for  him,  this  was  the 
manifestation  of  the  tragic  thought  which  underlies  the 
worlds. 

He  raised  his  head.  An  oil  lamp  by  a  window  threw  a 
grudging  light  across  the  narrow  street. 

Unawares  he  had  passed  St.  Stephen's  square.  Another 
church,  St.  Peter's, — he  knew  it  by  its  dome  overburdened 
with  gilding  and  ornament — now  loomed  up  a  little  behind 
him  on  his  left. 

"  I  must  have  taken  a  wrong  turning." 

Annoyed  yet  amused,  Rentzdorf  retraced  his  steps. 

It  was  an  unfamiliar  part  of  the  city.  Those  side  streets 
in  which  the  lamps  were  placed  at  wider  and  wider  distances, 
the  low-arched  doorways,  made  a  sinister  impression.  Now 
and  then  a  stooping  figure  slid  past  him,  looking  neither  to 
right  nor  left.  It  was  one  of  those,  he  thought,  who  in 
sleepless  misery  wait  the  day  and  see  it  rise  and  are  not 
glad. 

Man's  burden,  the  struggles  of  the  human  race — no 
ethical  leader  or  professional  philanthropist  ever  felt  that 
burden  with  more  imaginative  sympathy  than  Rentz- 
dorf. 

He  regained  the  main  street  and  resumed  his  course.  He 
was  now  in  one  of  the  oldest  quarters  of  the  town.  Bundles 
of  wood,  according  to  the  Viennese  custom,  lay  heaped  in 
front  of  the  doors ;  here  and  there  the  pavement  was  merged 
in  the  street ;  sometimes  he  had  to  walk  between  tenements 
plunged  in  total  darkness  or  through  narrow  passages  that 
seemed  built  for  sin  or  crime. 

From  under  an  arch  at  the  end  of  a  cavernous  passage  he 
emerged  into  an  open  space.  A  high  wall  rose  on  his  right ; 
beyond,  in  the  darkness,  some  dimly  outlined  gables  and  a 
tower. 

It  was  Santa  Maria,  the  famous  Dominican  church. 


292  Schonbrunn 

Within  its  precincts,  one  of  the  graves  was  the  grave  of 
Ir£ne  Apponyi. 

Rentzdorf  felt  his  face  change.  An  immense  sorrow  stole 
up  to  him  like  a  visible  mist. 

"In  questa  tomba  oscura  ..."  Overhead  the  starless 
night;  then  remembrance  and  the  heart's  cry  to  the  in- 
attentive dead — questioning,  expostulating,  in  bitter, 
accusing,  or  exculpatory  appeal. 

"Brought  to  rest  there,  moveless  for  ever,  she  that  was 
once  so  fever-quick  in  all  her  movements ;  corruption,  she 
that  was  once  so  fair.  Unhearing,  unanswering  nothing- 
ness ..." 

It  was  too  great,  too  august  for  pity. 

"What  hand  pushed  me  this  way  to-night?  Incongru- 
ous?" he  reflected. 

1 '  To  stand  thus  by  the  grave  of  a  dead  mistress,  the  kisses 
of  a  living  mistress  still  hot  on  my  lips,  incongruous?  Yes; 
as  life  is,  as  death  is. " 

"Crimson-dyed  with  these  two  women's  blood,"  he 
muttered  to  himself,  resuming  his  walk.  "All  my  art-life; 
crimson-dyed  with  these  two  women's  blood,  all  my  thought- 
life." 

He  sank  in  reverie. 

"If  she  too  were  dead?" 

Rentzdorf  wheeled  round  as  though  a  hand  had  been 
laid  on  his  shoulder. 

"No,  no,  no,  no  .  .  ." 

He  felt  now,  he  knew  now  the  horror  that  had  pulsated 
in  his  mistress's  voice  an  hour  ago.  Her  gloomy  words, 
"We  shall  have  the  courage  to  destroy  each  other  ..." 
came  back  to  him,  weaving  themselves  into  the  texture 
of  his  own  speculations. 

All  great  art,  poetry  or  music,  all  great  history,  is  tragic, 
because  the  inmost  nature  of  the  universe  is  tragic.  The 
more,  therefore,  a  poem  or  a  symphony,  a  statue  or  a 


The  Masked  Ball  293 

painting  partakes  of  that  world-anguish,  the  "greater"  it  is, 
that  is  to  say,  the  truer  the  more  vital  it  is,  for  it  is  saturated 
most  deeply  with  Being's  essence. 

"Yes,"  Rentzdorf  concluded,  "that  is  the  meaning,  or 
there  is  no  meaning. " 

He  walked  on. 

A  mass  of  trees  in  the  West,  impenetrable  and  dark,  rose 
suddenly  on  his  right  not  half  a  mile  distant.  It  was  the 
Prater.  In  front  and  on  his  left  stretched  the  glimmering 
levels,  league  on  league,  of  the  Marchfeld  and  the  illimitable 
plain  beyond,  and  far  on  the  horizon,  just  above  a  mist- 
bank  heavy  and  cold,  burned  a  lonely  splendour — the 
waning  moon. 

He  stood  rapt. 

"God,  how  strange,  how  beautiful!" 

The  torturing  pent-up  emotions,  thought-irradiated, 
searched  the  profoundest  mysteries — the  all-beginnings  and 
the  all-endings.  The  beauty  of  woman,  the  beauty  of 
nature,  the  beauty  of  night,  soul-ecstasy,  sense-ecstasy,  were 
rays  that,  converging,  darted  from  the  eternity  named  the 
past  into  the  eternity  named  the  future. 

"Time?  Eternity?  What  are  they?  They  are  words 
by  which  our  minds  portray  God's  severance  from  God's 
goal,  nothing  more. " 

But  in  such  moments  as  this,  that  goal  was,  as  in  a  mirage, 
attained;  attained  in  him,  attained  in  God.  He  sank  in 
yet  profounder  reverie. 

An  intoxicating  vision  tore  him  from  his  reverie — Amalie 
von  Esterthal  stepping  from  her  domino,  the  lustre  of  her 
arms,  her  shoulders,  her  bosom,  a  blinding  loveliness,  sur- 
passing the  lustre  of  her  own  gems.  She  was  for  him  the 
reality,  realitas  realitatum;  and  yonder  in  the  Rittersaal  she 
waited. 

He  struck  sharply  for  his  lodging  in  the  Rothenthurm,  now 
not  four  minutes  distant.  He  waked  his  sleepy  servant  and 


294  Schonbrunn 

half  an  hour  later,  in  the  Spanish  dress  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  black  embroidered  velvet,  white  silk  stockings  and 
sword,  Rentzdorf  was  recrossing  Vienna  on  his  way  to  the 
Hofburg. 


IV 


To  Rentzdorf  the  pile  of  buildings  which  composes  the 
Hofburg,  the  royal  palace  of  the  Habsburgs,  had  by  famili- 
arity lost  much  of  their  antiquarian  interest. 

As  a  boy  accompanying  his  mother,  and  in  his  youth  as  a 
student  at  the  university,  he  had  been  familiar  with  its 
rooms,  with  the  court  and  hall  of  the  Switzers,  the  Arch- 
duke's tower,  and  with  vault  or  window,  square  or  donjon, 
rich  with  memories  drawn  from  the  crusades  or  later 
centuries. 

But  the  Hofburg  had  more  personal  associations. 

In  its  winter  riding-school  he  had  first  seen  his  mistress ;  he 
had  met  her  at  its  fetes  and  at  its  balls;  he  had  visited 
with  her  its  art  treasures,  and  in  jest  or  in  earnest,  they 
had  at  length  fixed  on  three  objects  as  the  symbols  to  them 
of  all  that  the  palace  and  its  heroic  or  romantic  past  had 
come  to  mean — the  sword  and  gauntlets  of  Charlemagne, 
Tasso's  manuscript  of  the  Jerusalem,  and  the  Leda  of  Ben- 
venuto  Cellini.  The  tragic  dynasty  itself,  the  Habsburg 
men  and  women,  their  crimes  or  madness,  their  energy  or 
their  dullness,  rarely  came  into  their  talk.  Yet  to  Rentz- 
dorf himself  the  Habsburgs  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  had  still,  as  the  protagonists  of  oppression,  a  kind 
of  blasting  splendour,  best  personified  perhaps  in  Wallen- 
stein's  genius  and  sinister  magnificence. 

There  was  a  griding  crash.  The  hackney  had  stopped 
close  to  the  row  of  brilliantly  lit  windows.  A  crowd  still 
loafed  about  the  main  entrance,  mixing  with  the  link-boys 
and  servants. 


The  Masked  Ball  295 

At  the  foot  of  the  grand  staircase  a  door  opened  and  a 
burst  of  voluptuous  music  set  his  blood  on  fire. 

"What  will  she  wear?" 

A  figure  in  Magyar  uniform,  but  evidently  a  French 
officer,  was  striding  along  a  passage,  humming  the  air.  On 
seeing  Rentzdorf  he  stared  suspiciously  at  his  costume, 
seemed  about  to  speak,  but  changing  his  mind  at  Rentz- 
dorf's  glance,  resumed  his  patrol. 

The  next  minute,  irritated  by  the  incident,  which  re- 
minded him  of  Austria's  humiliation,  Rentzdorf  stood  in  the 
Rittersaal  itself. 

Pillars  of  polished  granite  with  Corinthian  capitals 
supported  the  frescoed  roof  of  this  imposing  room,  now 
flooded  with  the  soft  resplendence  of  a  thousand  lamps  and 
candelabra  that  repeated  their  flames  in  crystal  lustres  as 
in  irridescent  mirrors.  An  estrade  ran  down  one  side.  On 
the  opposite  side,  between  the  pillars,  a  conservatory  full  of 
flowering  shrubs  drew  the  eyes  imperceptibly  into  the  sap- 
phire tranquillity  of  the  night,  uniting  thus  with  nature 
this,  the  most  artificially  refined  scene  in  Europe  or  the 
world.  Everywhere  about  the  room  were  flowers,  massed 
in  the  orchestra,  half-concealing  the  musicians,  crowded 
on  the  front  of  the  estrade,  hanging  in  festoons  and  garlands 
from  the  frieze — carnations,  gardenias,  ropes  of  violets, 
azaleas,  and  innumerable  roses,  all  levied  upon  the  Imperial 
hothouses  of  Schonbrunn  itself,  from  Prague,  Innsbruck, 
and  the  historic  gardens  of  Znaim  and  Semmering;  and, 
mixing  with  this  cloud  of  natural  fragrance,  the  per- 
fumes of  a  hundred  women's  dresses;  and  on  the  leisured 
space  of  the  wide  floor  the  picturesque  costumes  of  the 
men — Magyar,  Pole,  Slovac,  French,  Austrian;  and  every- 
where the  radiance  of  diamonds  and  the  gleam  of  naked 
shoulders. 

A  waltz  was  in  progress. 

Under  Damirors  direction  the  dancers  were  arranged 


296  Schonbrunn 

in  two  elongated  circles  or  ellipses,  taking  in  nearly  the 
whole  of  the  wide  floor,  but  the  circles  moved  in  opposite 
directions.  In  the  outer,  the  dancers  moved  from  left  to 
right;  in  the  inner,  from  right  to  left. 

"A  posture  of  the  body — it  is  in  such  a  dance  the  posture 
of  a  soul,"  Berthold  Stahrenberg  had  once  said,  and  to- 
night, watching  the  languor  and  fury  of  this  waltz,  Rentz- 
dorf  had  opportunity  enough  of  testing  the  accuracy  of 
Bolli's  psychology . 

Whatever  of  distinction  was  left  in  Vienna  or  Austria 
itself  was  here,  and  here  also  were  the  froth  and  the  lees 
of  the  most  reckless  society  in  Europe,  its  grossness,  its 
fatuity,  its  luxury,  its  vanity.  Baron  X.,  in  a  short  velvet 
coat  bordered  with  silver  fox,  as  well-known  for  his  amours 
as  for  his  gambling  debts,  Rentzdorf  recognized  at  once ;  and 
dancing  not  very  far  behind  him,  in  the  arms  of  one  of  the 
Kinskys,  that  same  Baron  X.'s  wife,  the  decoy  for  young 
men  of  assured  wealth,  her  head  flung  back  as  though 
asleep,  rousing  herself  now  and  then  from  a  luxurious 
dream  to  take  the  step.  Then  in  rapid  succession  he 
saw  Prince  Z.,  an  elephant  erect  on  the  stout  legs  of  a  dwarf, 
owner  of  seventy  thousand  acres;  Madame  A.,  who  lived 
frankly  the  life  of  Catherine  II. ;  the  duellist  Y.,  bully  and 
society  blackmailer,  paid  "in  kind,"  not  money,  dressed 
in  Polish  costume,  with  yellow  boots,  in  his  biretta  a 
diamond  aigrette;  Count  Purgstall  and  his  Scottish  wife,  de- 
scribed on  her  advent  in  Vienna  as  "the  sister  of  Dugald 
Stewart"  and  provoking  the  comment,  "Qui  diable  est  Du- 
gald Stewart?";  the  Countess  Potocki,  celebrated  for  her 
house  full  of  tame  leopards,  monkeys,  grizzly  bears,  and 
human  dwarfs;  Count  Humbert,  Ambassador  to  Naples  dur- 
ing Amalie's  stay  there;  Baron  von  Stiegerling;  von  Sturmer, 
afterwards  celebrated  as  Francis  II. 's  representative  at 
Sainte  Helene;  Princess  X.,  one  of  the  "three  princesses" 
of  Metternich's  circle. 


The  Masked  Ball  297 

Decidedly  Andreossy's  ball  was  a  success,  thought  Rentz- 
dorf  ironically. 

"Perish  the  world  in  fire,  but  let  Vienna  waltz,"  was  a 
current  version  of  a  medieval  friar's  indignant  cry.  "The 
trumpet  of  the  Judgment  morn — Vienna  would  think  it  an 
invitation  to  the  waltz." 

Nevertheless,  Rentzdorf 's  ironic  mood  quickly  dissipated 
and  before  the  drifting  forms  he  lost  sight  of  individuals  as 
before  a  forest  swept  by  winds;  he  saw  only  the  vivid  tor- 
menting unassailable  beauty  of  the  whole — of  those  white 
and  glowing  arms  and  bosoms,  those  sparkling  or  tarnished 
eyes.  Woman's  beauty,  in  evil  or  in  good — it  was  still 
nature's  supremest  achievement,  Time's  most  alluring 
mystery,  here  on  this  planet  and  now. 

Two  dancers,  quitting  the  outer  circle,  stopped  near  him. 
The  lady,  tilting  her  chin  to  see  more  clearly  under  the 
black  velvet  of  her  mask,  said  to  her  partner  as  she  fanned 
herself: 

"When  I  die  I  mean  to  be  buried  like  Countess  Beresanyi 
— I  shall  have  nothing  but  men  asked  to  my  funeral,  all 
young,  all  laughing,  and  each  with  an  assignation  that 
night  with  one  of  his  three  mistresses. " 

"What  a  sphinx  you  are!"  came  the  heavy  answer. 

"A  sphinx?  Within  ten  minutes  you  have  called  Stadion 
a  sphinx,  Bonaparte  a  sphinx,  Speranski  a  sphinx,  Metter- 
nich  a  sphinx.  Am  I  too  a  sphinx?" 

"Assuredly;  and  the  most  charming  riddler  of  all." 

The  mask,  quitting  her  partner,  advanced  with  a  quick 
step  towards  Rentzdorf,  but  checking  herself  brusquely  she 
took  her  partner's  arm. 

"How?  Can  you  read  riddles  in  the  dark  then?  Mine, 
for  instance,  could  you  read  mine?  You  know  the  penalty 
of  failure." 

"  Let  me  risk  reading  your  riddle!  I  would  not  miss  that 
adventure — no,  not  for  all  the  ambassadors  of  all  the  powers." 


298  Schonbrunn 

"Dance  with  me,  then,"  she  said  with  an  ambiguous 
laugh. 

She  held  out  a  jewelled  hand,  and,  her  head  thrown 
languidly  back,  her  carmined  lips  uplifted,  with  a  bound 
she  dashed  into  the  outer  circle  and  the  maze  of  whirling 
skirts. 

Rentzdorf  looked  after  them. 

"Can  it  be  she?"  he  thought.     "And  Amalie  here!" 

He  searched  both  circles  of  the  waltz.  He  could  see 
Amalie  nowhere. 

He  had  recognized,  or  imagined  that  he  had  recognized 
behind  the  mask,  the  dark  eyes,  the  tormented  mouth  and 
wayward  grace  of  Adelheid  Ortski. 

"She  too?"  he  asked.  "My  God,  she  too  here  to-night? 
All  to-night  is  incongruous  as  a  midsummer  dream." 

The  music  rushed  on;  the  soaring  violins  were  like  cries 
of  delicious  anguish ;  the  beat  of  the  'cellos  like  the  throb- 
bing of  human  hearts.  On  the  polished  floor  he  saw  with 
a  curious  intentness  the  reflections  of  the  dancers  in  pale 
colours,  shadows  of  shadows. 


Quitting  the  Rittersaal,  he  sauntered  into  one  of  the 
adjoining  apartments. 

In  a  long  narrow  room,  adorned  with  two  rows  of  white 
marble  pillars  with  gilded  capitals,  some  sixty  or  seventy 
men  and  women  sat  or  reclined  on  sofas  and  low  chairs. 
There  were  groups  of  ten  and  groups  of  two,  but  all  were 
eating,  drinking,  and  talking  or  flirting. 

At  a  table  near  the  entrance  with  three  other  Russians 
he  saw  again  Alexis  Razumowski's  broad  yellowish  face  and 
heard  again  his  creaking  voice. 

"The  chief  thing  in  a  masked  ball  is  to  speak  before 
you  think.  Go  on  talking.  Say  anything,  say  everything ; 


The  Masked  Ball  299 

pell-mell,  witty  or  foolish,  wise  or  dull!  To  raise  a  smile 
or  a  laugh  is  the  all-in-all!  But  you  Germans  never  can 
and  never  will  do  this.  You  are  like  the  English ;  you  must 
think  before  you  speak." 

Rentzdorf  avoided  this  group  and  went  into  a  room  on  the 
right.  Here  servants  in  black  and  gold  liveries  were 
handing  about  cold  meats,  iced  drinks,  candied  orange, 
coffee,  and  champagne.  The  conversation  was  in  French; 
but  during  the  earlier  part  of  the  evening,  in  order  to  ac- 
centuate the  Austrian  character  of  the  ball,  it  had  been  in 
German.  Here  a  universal  languorousness  pervaded  the  air ; 
the  music  was  at  a  distance  and  heightened  the  effect. 

In  a  niche,  by  an  Artemis  in  marble,  a  woman  of  thirty  or 
thirty-five  in  a  black  velvet  mask  lay  lazily  fanning  herself : 
her  head  rested  on  silken  cushions,  her  eyelids  were  lowered, 
and  one  foot  in  its  satin  slipper,  thrust  carelessly  forward, 
accentuated  the  lines  of  her  form.  For  her  felicity  she 
seemed  to  desire  nothing  except  to  be  alone  with  her  mem- 
ories or  her  dreams.  Near  her,  two  other  women  stood,  un- 
masked, talking  to  each  other  in  low  voices.  A  man  in  the 
blue  and  red  uniform  of  the  Austrian  chasseurs  approached 
them.  Another  group  of  five  was  composed  of  two  cava- 
liers and  three  women.  One  cavalier,  a  man  of  fifty,  had 
the  look  of  an  Assyrian — dark,  sleepy  eyes,  curving  nose, 
and  on  his  protruding  chest  a  thick  black  beard.  Horses, 
dogs,  hounds,  hunting  had  been  discussed  in  turn.  The 
conversation  had  now  settled  on  Bonaparte.  Had  M. 
Uvarow,  an  Austrian  official  asked,  addressing  a  young 
Russian,  heard  the  Cardinal  Pignatelli's  mot  about  the 
flatterer  who  traced  the  Bonapartes  to  a  Greek  family  of 
princely  rank — the  KaXojxepot? 

Uvarow,  a  giant  with  wide-set  tranquil  eyes,  waited, 
silent.  He  had  not  heard  the  mot. 

"Well,"  the  Austrian  went  on,  happy  to  place  his  anec- 
dote, "when  M.  1'abbe  Pignatelli  was  told  of  this  discovery, 


300  Schonbrunn 

he  remarked  at  once  that  he  did  not  know  about  Napoleon 
himself,  but  he  was  certain  that  his  sister  the  Princess 
Borghese  must  belong  to  the  KaXo^ep6t." 

Uvarow,  after  some  seconds'  reflection,  laughed,  a  big 
earth-shaking  laugh.  But  to  the  ladies  the  narrator  had  to 
explain  lazily  that  meros  ([xspo?)  meant  a  part,  so  that 
c  meant  the  same  as  Bonaparti,  whereas  me"ros 
meant  thigh,  and  /caXofjiepoc,  Pauline's  putative 
ancestors,  meant  "the  beautiful-thighed. " 

Suddenly  a  woman's  voice  in  low  charmed  surprise  called 
Rentzdorf's  name. 
'"Come  here!" 

It  was  Lan-Lan. 

She  had  in  her  left  hand  a  tiny  silver  plate,  with  the 
Habsburg  arms  in  gold  and  lapis  lazuli  on  the  edge,  and 
on  the  plate  the  fragments  of  a  pastry  which  she  was  eating 
— one  of  those  condiments  the  reverse  of  "simple, "  in  which 
all  fruits  and  all  sweet  tastes  touch  the  palate  at  once — 
pineapple,  clove,  peach,  caramel,  honey,  strawberry. 

Kessling  seated  near  her  sofa,  jumped  to  his  feet. 

"Ha,  poet,  I've  not  seen  you  before.  What  news  from 
the  seat  of  war?" 

Kessling  had  the  mania,  fostered  by  his  riches  and  his 
rude  vitality,  of  treating  every  acquaintance  as  if  he  were 
an  old  friend  and  every  woman  of  rank  as  if  she  had  at  one 
time  been  his  mistress. 

Rentzdorf  sat  down  beside  Lan-Lan  and  Bolli.  The 
latter  was  wearing  a  short  Spanish  cloak  of  dove-wing  vel- 
vet trimmed  with  ermine,  white  silk  vest,  breeches,  and 
stockings,  and  on  his  shoes  broad  silver  buckles.  "You 
are  in  luck  anyhow, "  Bolli  said  in  a  sort  of  apology  for  his 
satellite's  crudeness.  "Here  is  a  living  poem;  Lan-Lan 
eating  burnt  almonds  and  cream  cakes. " 

To  Lan-Lan  this  evening  had  been  a  triumph.  Her 
costume  had  outshone  Princess  Daruka's,  and  after  a  steady 


The  Masked  Ball  301 

survey  of  Lan-Lan's  superb  natural  coiffure,  bound  by  a 
fillet  studded  with  diamonds,  with  one  large  pearl  sus- 
pended by  a  tiny  gold  chain  on  her  brow — after  a  not  less 
steady  survey  of  her  face,  of  her  arms,  and  the  opulent  yet 
harmonious  curves  of  her  figure,  the  Circassian,  with  a  deep 
breath,  had  uttered  the  fatidical  words; 

"It  is  she  who  is  Zuleika  to-night,  not  I." 

And  she  had  applied  to  Lan-Lan,  Att'r's  verses  describing 
the  queen  of  oriental  passion. 

A  listless  voice  with  cadences  which  sounded  oddly  in 
French,  addressed  Bo  Hi. 

Rentzdorf  turned  to  meet  the  morbid  glittering  eyes, 
the  nervously  working  features  of  the  young  Polish  diplo- 
matist, Caspar  Czartorisky,  nephew  of  Prince  Adam  Czar- 
torisky  the  statesman.  The  face,  set  in  a  cloud  of  soft  dark 
hair,  was  instantly  arresting,  but  even  to  strangers  the 
effect  quickly  passed  and  only  its  weakness  and  over-excit- 
ability remained  to  disturb  rather  than  to  engross  the 
mind;  one  turned  with  relief  from  the  Slavonic  pictur- 
esqueness  to  the  steadier  energy  and  depth  of  the  German 
faces  around.  Yet  Caspar  Czartorisky  was  typical  of  a 
phrase  through  which  the  German  and  the  European  mind 
was  passing — spiritual  energies  which,  widowed  of  their  old 
inspirations,  had  not  yet  found  a  new;  nascent  life-weari- 
ness, sometimes  affected,  sometimes  sincere.  But  in  Czar- 
torisky all  was  tinged  with  an  outre  sentimentalism.  He 
had  declaimed  passages  of  Ossian  and  Werther  in  front  of  a 
skull,  and  in  imitation  of  the  Emperor  Otho,  he  had  slept 
with  a  dagger  under  his  pillow.  He  had  found  peace  and  a 
home  in  Vienna — in  its  picture  galleries,  its  parks,  its 
romantic  environs  and  its  libraries,  and  above  all  in  Mo- 
zart's music,  which  he  styled  the  very  soul  of  the  soul  of 
Vienna  "Tame  de  1'ame  Viennoise. " 

"For  myself,"  said  Bolli  in  answer  to  a  remark  of  the 
young  Pole,  "I  find  a  woman  more  desirable  just  because 


302  Schonbrunn 

she  is  subject  to  these  infirmities — decay  and  death.  I 
would  even  imitate  that  troubadour  whose  mistress  was 
struck  with  leprosy — What?  Is  the  conversation  growing 
too  decadent  for  your  taste?"  Bolli  said,  addressing  Count 
Markowitz,  Johann's  brother,  who,  in  an  immaculate 
stock,  grey  coat  and  star,  had  unexpectedly  risen  to  his 
feet. 

"Let  us  have  no  quarrelling  to-night,"  Lan-Lan  said  in 
her  soft,  lazy  but  authoritative  manner.  "Viennese  we 
are,  and  Viennese  let  us  be — not  Russians  or  English; 
no,  not  even  Poles, "  with  a  smile  to  Czartorisky. 

"Oh,  to-night,"  the  latter  answered  chivalrously,  "War- 
saw is  too  happy  to  be  a  suburb  of  Vienna. " 

Lan-Lan's  syntax  when  she  spoke  French  was  not  faultless, 
but  she  never  hesitated  for  a  word,  boldly  interspersing, 
sometimes  with  a  picturesque  charm,  German  or  Viennese 
idioms. 

"Save  in  words  of  wisdom  spake  she  not  unto  them," 
said  Bolli;  "but  if  in  the  presence  of  Wisdom  I  may  adven- 
ture a  word,  I  should  like  to  ask  his  Illustriousness,  Count 
Markowitz  .  .  .  Pardon  me,"  Bolli  said,  interrupting 
himself  and  turning  to  Rentzdorf.  "You  guess  the  issue? 
Markowitz  before  you  came  was  on  his  hobby;  he  is  still 
the  very  phcenix  of  Vienna,  he  and  the  incomparable 
Mack!  When  was  there  an  age  in  which  that  taunt,  decad- 
ence, has  not  been  flung  at  insight  by  stupidity?"  And  to 
Markowitz  he  said,  "Meaning  on  this  earth  there  is  none, 
except  beauty.  That  conviction  is  our  faith,  our  church, 
or,  if  you  like,  our  religion  and  our  God.  Is  your  God  a 
better?  And  in  spite  of  our  decadence,  Rentzdorf's,  Lan- 
Lan's,  Czartorisky's,  and  mine,  our  regiments  did  not  so 
badly  at  Aspern,  n'est-ce  pas?" 

"  Do  you  know  whither  this  will  lead  you?  Do  you  know 
whither  you  are  going? "  Markowitz  said  solemnly. 

Bolli  looked  at  him,  ironic,  and  answered  disconcertingly : 


The  Masked  Ball  303 

"Perfectly." 

"Perfectly?" 

"I  will  repeat  the  word  in  six  languages  if  it  will  make  my 
meaning  plainer. " 

Rentzdorf  looked  at  Bolli.  This  was  not  the  man  he  had 
seen  at  Buda  in  July  last.  What  was  this  change  which 
the  three  months  had  worked?  Lan-Lan  too  was  altered. 
A  smile  lay  on  her  lips,  but  there  was  a  feverous  melan- 
choly in  her  eyes  and  each  time  she  met  Bolli 's  glance  her 
white  lids  perceptibly  lowered. 

"Everybody  now  wishes  you  to  be  something  else  than 
you  actually  are,"  Lan-Lan's  younger  brother,  Max  Die- 
trich, said  in  the  pause.  He  spoke  in  an  awkward,  self- 
conscious,  but  modest  and  very  winning  manner,  and  when 
Bolli  looked  at  him  encouragingly  and  Lan-Lan  dropped  her 
air  of  sisterly  condescension,  he  went  on,  "It  spoils  Napo- 
leon to  me.  He  wants  everybody  to  be  cut  after  a  certain 
pattern. " 

"Right, "  said  Bolli.  "If  he  could  make  Europe  a  moral 
drill-ground  he  would  appoint  Markowitz  his  moral  chief- 
of-the-staff. " 

At  a  repeated  tapping  made  by  the  master  of  the  cere- 
monies' wand  on  the  floor  in  the  adjoining  room  Lan-Lan 
said  to  her  brother,  "What  is  it?  Maxi,  will  you  go  and 
see?" 

Max  got  up  leisurely,  not  sorry  to  display  the  magni- 
ficence of  his  uniform  and  the  gallantry  of  his  carriage. 

"The  figure  dance!"  he  called  back  a  second  later. 

VI 

There  was  a  general  movement  in  the  company  towards 
the  Rittersaal.  Bolli  took  Rentzdorf's  arm,  detaining  him. 

"Let's  stay  a  little.  God,  but  it  is  good  to  see  you  again! 
We  in  Vienna  have  been  walking  amongst  precipices  for 


304  Schonbrunn 

days,  for  months.  One  is  named  war;  the  other  and  the 
ghastlier  descent,  peace. " 

Rentzdorf  looked  at  the  handsome,  reckless,  dissipated 
features,  the  high,  square  forehead,  the  ardent  eyes.  A 
mean  or  cowardly  thought  had  never  found  lodging  or 
comfort  there.  What  then  was  it  that  harassed  him? 

"I  pray  it  may  be  war  to-night — anything,  anything 
rather  than  this  hideous,  humiliating,  unspeakable  peace. 
War  is  like  brandy;  it  saves  one  from  thinking.  It  even 
gives  a  meaning  to  this  unmeaning  Austria  and  this  unmean- 
ing earth.  The  world-soul's  strife?  Shiva  dancing  high 
above  the  roaring  agonies  of  worlds!  That  is  the  best 
thought  I  have  derived  from  your  book,  Heinrich.  I 
repeated  it  the  night  before  Wagram.  War?  Bonaparte 
has  his  limitations,  but,  by  God,  what  grandeur!  What 
heroic  vitality!" 

"Only  the  limited  are  strong,  Bolli,"  Rentzdorf  said, 
humouring  him  and  attributing  his  state  of  mind  to  the 
excitement  of  the  hour,  perhaps  to  wine. 

"That  is  what  I  cannot  get  Johann  to  see!  He  has  the 
Markowitz  taint.  He  will  drag  in  morality,  the  good  will ; 
as  if  any  one  knew,  outside  the  Markowitz  barracks,  what 
good  or  evil  really  is.  I  quarrelled  with  him  this  morning; 
now  that  you  are  here  we  shall  understand  each  other 
again." 

He  looked  in  friendly  anxiety  into  Rentzdorf 's  face. 

The  latter  stepped  aside. 

A  lady  with  a  beautiful,  white,  oval  chin  passed  and 
smiled  up  to  Bolli.  He  bowed  deeply. 

"  You  do  not  know  her?  Ah,  you  have  been  away.  It  is 
Frau  von  Seckenheim;  newly  married;  a  Suabian. " 

It  was  the  lady  whom  Rentzdorf  had  observed  reclining 
alone,  sunk  in  her  dreams. 

But  there  was  a  sound  like  the  click  of  fans,  a  burst  of 
music,  laughter,  talk. 


The  Masked  Ball  305 

"The  minuet  is  over.  We  must  go  in  for  the  figure 
dance. " 

Taking  Rentzdorf 's  arm,  he  sauntered  with  him  into  the 
Rittersaal. 

VII 

The  figure  dance  was,  like  Damirol's  scheme  for  the 
waltz,  designed  to  be  seen  as  well  as  danced.  It  was  a 
modification  of  the  tarantelle  as  danced  in  Naples  some 
ten  years  before  by  Lady  Hamilton,  and  in  Paris  by  Josephine 
Beauharnais,  Madame  Tallien  and  Madame  Re"camier — 
slower,  more  majestic,  and  though  so  arranged  that  several 
couples  or  groups  could  dance  it  simultaneously,  not  less 
passionately  voluptuous.  It  had  been  styled,  not  infelicit- 
ously,  the  Austrian  tarantelle ;  la  valse  tarantelle. 

Amalie,  on  the  estrade,  surrounded  by  a  brilliant  crowd, 
was  looking  at  the  dancers.  Toe,  Lan-Lan,  and  Nusschen 
were  now  close  to  her,  dancing  together,  moving  in  a  slow 
cadenced  rhythm. 

"Whose  is  the  music?"  Rentzdorf  asked. 

"Weber's,"  said  Bolli.  "He  is  quite  young,  but  can  do 
this  kind  of  thing  supremely  well." 

Suddenly,  on  seeing  Bolli,  Lan-Lan  quitted  the  circle, 
and,  with  a  glance  at  Toe,  led  Nusschen  towards  Amalie. 

Bolli  at  the  same  moment  stepped  forward  to  Lan-Lan 
and  in  apparent  consternation — "Lady,  you  have  dropped 
your  pearl." 

Lan-Lan  put  both  her  hands  to  her  brow,  then  to  her 
snowy  bosom. 

"What  made  you  say  that?"  she  demanded.  "Hein? 
What  made  you?" 

The  smile  on  her  lips  was  like  sunlight  on  the  crimson  of 
a  rose. 

"Pardon!  in  the  effulgence  of  your  brow  I  could  not  see 
the  pearl." 


3o6  Schonbrunn 

"  I  am  so  hot, "  she'said  aloud;  her  eyes  steady,  she  whis- 
pered, "Take  me  into  the  gardens.  Not  that  way,  here, 
under  the  trees.  What  is  the  hour?  Day  must  be  nearer 
than  I  thought.  The  sky  is  sapphire." 

VIII 

In  the  tarantelle  meanwhile  Amalie  had  taken  Lan-Lan's 
place.  In  an  instant  Rentzdorf  was  in  a  dream,  a  dark 
enchantment.  Life's  end  was  Time's  end,  and  Time's  end, 
the  soul's  destiny,  was  to  hear  that  music,  gazing  on  those 
exquisite  forms — Toe's  flexuous  grace,  Nusschen's  vital 
youth,  his  mistress's  entrancing  presence. 

The  measure  of  the  dance  had  heightened.  It  became 
intenser,  wilder.  More  than  twenty  groups  were  now  on 
the  floor,  some  in  threes  some  in  twos.  The  women's  forms 
to  his  imagination  seemed  less  a  material  essence  than  a 
celestial  song,  creating  new  harmonies,  more  impassioning, 
more  soul-enthralling,  as  they  danced  on — now  advancing, 
now  receding,  in  wreaths,  in  circles,  an  intertwining  loveli- 
ness without  end. 

"This  it  is,  beauty's  very  soul,  its  dread  inaccessibility — 
that  it  is.  Can  this  power  exist  latent  in  those  bodies  yet 
not  know  its  effects  upon  the  heart?  No;  by  God,  yes, 
they  do  know." 

In  confirmation  of  his  words  the  dancers  by  an  uncon- 
scious or  purposed  interchange  of  thought  appeared  to 
have  conceived  a  design  by  which  they  could  display  their 
supreme  grace — a  figure  in  which  each  manifested  the  per- 
fections of  her  body  at  once  in  movement  and  in  sculptural 
repose.  It  was  a  figure  of  a  difficulty  so  extreme  that  to 
fail  in  it  creditably  was  a  success,  to  succeed  a  triumph. 

Breathless  he  waited.     Could  they  succeed? 

A  cry  of  deep  but  suppressed  admiration  escaped  him 
and  was  repeated  in  several  voices  around.  The  success 


The  Masked  Ball  307 

was  as  bewildering  as  it  was  complete.  Nearer  the  dancers 
came  and  nearer,  circling  round  and  past  each  other,  like 
light  upon  light.  No  music  had  ever  penetrated  his  soul 
more  intimately,  no  symphony  had  ever  worked  in  him  a 
transport  more  ineffable;  yet  this  was  sight. 

In  a  second  they  swept  past  him,  revolving;  his  blood 
felt  the  indescribable  magnetism.  A  pungent  yet  delicate 
perfume  that  he  seemed  to  know  and  yet  not  to  know 
remained  in  his  nostrils. 

"Beauty  and  mystery  ..." 

Close  beside  him  Caspar  Czartorisky  in  his  most  affected 
manner  was  declaiming  to  three  or  four  listeners: 

"No  woman's  face  ought  to  show  so  royal  a  joy.  It 
challenges  the  gods  to  envy.  Had  Paris  on  Mount  Ida 
a  fairer  vision  ?  Who  is  she,  that  demi-deity  with  the  hair  ? 
Countess  Esterthal  ?  What  ? ' ' 

"Tshut  ..."  came  the  answer.  "You  have  evidently 
just  come  from  Warsaw." 

Rentzdorf  moved  away. 

Suddenly  he  was  aware  of  a  fast-spreading  confusion, 
here,  there,  everywhere.  The  dance  had  been  inter- 
rupted; the  orchestra  silenced.  The  dancers  were  stand- 
ing in  bewildered  groups.  The  spectators  on  the  estrade 
alone  seemed  to  know  the  cause  of  the  disturbance. 
Their  looks  expressed  astonishment,  impatience,  anxiety,  or 
excited  joy.  Amongst  the  dancers,  several  preserved  the 
position  in  which  the  disturbance  had  first  arrested  them. 
Some  had  one  foot  still  raised;  others  had  stopped  in 
the  midst  of  a  sentence;  one  lady,  stooping  to  detach  a 
fallen  wreath  that  clung  to  her  skirt,  still  held  it  in  her 
hand.  Others  stared  at  M.  Damirol  seeking  an  explana- 
tion. Then  came  questions,  exclamations  of  annoyance 
or  amusement,  and  some  oaths. 

All  at  once  the  confusion  was  interrupted  by  a  single 
sound.  It  was  a  wild  hurrah,  repeated,  and  repeated  again. 


308  Schonbrunn 

"Long  live  the  Archduke  Maximilian!  Es  lebe  der  Erz- 
herzog  Maximilian!  Hoch!  Hoch!  Hoch!" 

The  master  of  ceremonies  strode  excitedly  towards  the 
orchestra.  It  broke  into  Haydn's  anthem,  the  Austrian 
national  hymn,  made  more  solemn  by  the  death  of  the 
composer  not  many  months  before — "Gott  erhalte  unsern 
Kaiser  ..." 

At  that  solemn  melody  there  was  a  wild  rush  from  the 
gardens  and  from  the  rooms  surrounding  the  Rittersaal. 
What  could  it  mean?  Each  as  they  arrived  stopped  and 
stood  bound  as  in  a  charm. 

Even  at  such  a  moment  Rentzdorf  was  forced  to  notice 
Bolli  and  Lan-Lan.  They  came  in  very  slowly.  On  Lan- 
Lan's  face  was  a  set  flush ;  a  tress  of  her  hair  loosened  on  the 
left  temple  imparted  to  her  something  maenadic,  world- 
defiant.  A  delicious  recklessness  was  in  her  bearing, 
forming  a  bizarre  contrast  with  the  richness  of  her  dress 
and  the  magnificence  of  her  jewels.  The  diamond  fillet 
was  still  on  her  brows,  but  the  pearl  had  fallen  or  been 
unhooked  from  its  edge. 

But  at  a  louder  shout  he  turned  to  the  corner  of  the 
room  whence  the  excitement  emanated.  There  a  crowd 
had  gathered  round  the  three  men  whose  entrance  had 
caused  the  uproar.  In  one  he  recognized  instantly  the 
discomposed,  turbulent  countenance  and  blackguardly, 
high-bred  air  of  the  Catiline  of  Vienna,  the  Archduke 
Maximilian,  the  hero  of  the  bombardment.  He  had 
the  Habsburg  peculiarities,  the  heavy  refinement,  the 
breed,  the  cruelty,  something  of  the  madness.  In  his  mad 
attempt  to  defend  the  city  there  had  been  no  patriotism. 
His  mistress,  Julie  von  Hofstenger,  had  been  captured  in 
the  hunting-lodge  dedicated  to  those  nocturnal  orgies 
where,  with  the  debauched  companions  of  his  revels,  he 
rehearsed  the  suppers  of  the  Borgias.  Yet  like  his  brother, 
the  Cardinal,  and  like  the  two  Emperors,  his  uncles,  he  was 


The  Masked  Ball  309 

a  fanatic  of  the  new  music,  passing  whole  days  lulled  by 
Mozart's  melodies  and  Julie's  autumnal  charms.  But  that 
other  beside  the  Archduke,  a  man  with  grey  hair  and  beard 
and  vice-worn  or  care-worn  face — who  was  he? 

A  man  behind  Rentzdorf,  in  civilian  costume  but  with 
the  Order  of  Maria  Theresa  conspicuous  on  his  breast,  had 
been  observing  the  sinister  figure,  and  now  said — "He 
looks  like  a  man  who  has  sold  his  country  and  has  the  price 
in  his  pocket,  and  is  now  troubled  with  the  question — 
Have  I  asked  too  much?  Should  I  have  asked  still  more?" 

The  excitement  mounted.  Men  wearing  various  foreign 
orders,  men  in  uniforms  covered  with  stars,  seemed  to  start 
from  the  ground.  Women  in  silks  and  satins,  rushed 
this  way,  rushed  that  way,  and  jostled  against  each  other, 
yielding  or  overbearing. 

Gradually  the  chaos  of  emotion  became  a  cosmos,  became 
a  joy,  became  triumph.  Tears  and  hysteric  laughter; 
then  the  regulation  screams  and  faintings  of  women,  but 
even  these  had  a  sort  of  sincerity.  Men  and  women  clasped 
each  other's  hands  and  stood  silent;  others,  locked  in 
embraces,  laughed  and  cried  together  and,  without  visible 
embarrassment,  unclasped  each  other  to  clasp  others. 

At  last  the  confused  shouting  became  an  articulate  cry, 
"The  peace!  The  peace  is  signed!  Long  live  Austria! 
Long  live  our  Emperor!  Long  live  the  Archduke  Maxi- 
milian!" and  again  the  band  broke  into  the  national  hymn. 

The  gesticulations  of  the  master  of  ceremonies,  aided  by 
the  stewards,  at  last  succeeded  in  restoring  a  temporary 
order  or  semblance  of  order. 

Bolli,  crossing  the  floor,  came  up  to  Rentzdorf.  "It  is 
over  then?"  he  said  in  a  curious  voice.  "Well,  it  was  to 
have  come." 

There  was  no  gladness  in  the  tones — yet  no  resentment; 
the  man  to  whom  chance  offers  the  opportunity  of  perfecting 
a  crime  might  have  had  that  voice,  that  manner. 


310  Schonbrunn 

Rentzdorf  by  his  own  emotion  knew  now  how  intolerable 
the  suspense  had  grown  to  himself  as  to  his  mistress.  Her 
joy  after  the  haggard  anxieties  of  the  months  broke  in  his 
heart ;  but  he  knew  in  that  same  moment  how  much  he  was 
a  German. 

Standing  silent  by  Bolli  his  mind  groped  at  the  meaning 
of  this  event,  this  certainty  after  so  much  dubiety.  Peace 
not  war.  But  upon  what  terms  ? 

And  as  in  a  kaleidoscope  he  saw  Bonaparte  with  Prussia, 
the  Rhine,  with  Central  Germany,  Saxony,  Bavaria,  the 
Tyrol,  with  Italy,  with  Austria,  with  Russia  as  his  allies 
or  his  vassal  states.  In  world-history  what  single  man 
had  possessed  a  power  so  portentous?  Could  any  man 
stand  so  high  and  not  fall  from  sheer  dizziness?  He  saw 
Napoleon's  face  in  marble  quietude,  the  eyes,  the  resolute 
chin.  Nothing  could  jar  that  calm — neither  disaster  nor 
triumph. 

"In  action  the  most  astonishing  portent  that  the  Aryan 
race  has  produced.  Christ  is  the  glory  of  the  Semitic;  so 
is  Hannibal.  But  this  man?  Will  his  name  indeed  in  the 
centuries  supplant  Christ's?" 

Bolli's  hand  was  on  his  arm. 

"Yonder  comes  Johann:  he  will  give  us  the  authentic 
details." 

Rentzdorf  turned.  The  next  instant  Johann  was  beside 
him.  The  latter's  features,  always  very  dark,  had  a  stern, 
repressed  expression,  but  under  the  mask  it  was  easy  to 
detect  his  fearful  emotion.  He  stared  about  him  like  a  man 
v»rho,  coming  suddenly  from  darkness  to  intense  light,  sees 
all  things  too  distinctly  and  too  confusedly.  Nothing  was 
in  perspective.  "Let  us  get  out  of  this, "  he  said  to  Rentz- 
dorf, ignoring  Bolli. 

In  a  deserted  side-room  the  curious  gloomy  sentimental- 
ism  which  in  the  Austrian  nature  contends  with  Teutonic 
apathy  showed  itself.  In  rapid  words  in  answer  to  Bolli's 


The  Masked  Ball  311 

questions,  he  sketched  the  terms  of  the  Treaty — three 
millions  of  their  most  faithful  subjects  torn  from  the 
Habsburgs;  three  million  square  miles  of  territory  torn 
from  Austria;  a  war  indemnity  of  three  millions. 

"But  that  is  nothing.     It  is  this  marriage  ..." 

" The  marriage?     It  is  true  then? " 

Both  of  Johann's  listeners  paled  frightfully. 

"My  country,  oh  God,  my  country!"  Johann  said 
furiously.  "There  is  no  longer  a  Germany.  Men  shall 
say  to-morrow — Here  stands  a  French  fortress  once  named 
Germany.  Her  rivers  are  in  bonds.  The  Rhine  mirrors 
the  faces  of  voluntary  serfs.  Slaves  by  a  tyrant's  permis- 
sion crawl  on  their  mother-earth  and  dig  Germany  into  a 
grave  for  a  nation's  honour.  Upon  what  shall  the  return- 
ing sun  look?  Austria — Hell  and  death !  Austria?" 

He  grasped  at  his  sword. 

Rentzdorf  misunderstanding  his  purpose,  seized  his 
arm. 

"  Leave  me,  Heinrich. " 

He  wrenched  himself  aside,  and,  sitting  down,  placed 
the  blade  against  his  knee.  He  tugged,  he  pulled,  but  the 
proved  steel  did  not  break. 

With  an  oath  he  sprang  erect,  and  putting  his  foot  on  the 
blade  close  to  the  hilt : 

' '  Break !     Malediction  on  you,  break ! ' ' 

With  a  griding  horrid  crash,  like  a  creature  in  pain,  the 
blade  snapped. 

Johann  stood  staring  dully  and  stupidly  down  at  the 
fragments. 

"An  emperor  gave  it  to  my  father  the  morning  after 
Hochkirchen;  and,  of  the  same  house,  an  emperor  to-day 
has  shattered  the  honour  of  Austria  more  irretrievably 
than  that  sword  is  shattered." 

Bolli  with  a  haggard  face  walked  to  and  fro  muttering  to 
himself.  Under  his  slender  hooked  nose  a  patch  of  powder 


312  Schonbrunn 

on  his  chin  covering  a  slight  razor-cut,  hung  to  the  place 
like  a  plaster. 

There  was  a  momentary  blaze  of  anger,  if  not  of  scorn,  in 
Rentzdorf's  eyes.  This  patriotic  effervescence  grated  on 
him  harshly. 

Was  patriotism  this? 

Yes,  sentimental  it  might  be  and  even  theatrical,  yet 
the  hope  of  Germany  was  just  in  such  despair  and  in  such 
authentic  wrath  as  this. 


CHAPTER  X 
NAPOLEON'S  ADDRESS  TO  HIS  GUARD 


QATURDAY,  the  I4th  October,  was  the  anniversary 
O  of  Jena,  a  date  sacred  in  the  annuals  of  the  French 
armies. 

Nevertheless,  every  attempt  at  celebration  had  sputtered 
out.  If  the  subject  had  been  discussed  at  headquarters  no 
instructions  had  been  issued.  The  soldiers  themselves  were 
for  the  most  part  indifferent  or  hostile.  After  six  months 
on  the  Danube,  three  of  war  and  three  of  insufferable  tedium, 
war- weariness  had  become  epidemic.  The  single  will  which 
Napoleon  attributed  to  every  army  had  declared  itself, 
and  it  was  the  will  not  for  the  celebration  of  past  battles, 
but  for  the  celebration  of  immediate  peace. 

Since  1806,  the  Old  Guard  had  been  recruited  from  the 
veterans  of  many  corps,  and  at  Enzersdorf,  as  around 
Schonbrunn,  there  were  hundreds  of  grenadiers  who  had 
fought  at  Jena  with  Napoleon  or  with  Davout  at  Auerstadt. 
These  men  were  as  jealous  for  the  glory  of  the  Third  Corps 
as  those  of  the  Fifth  were  jealous  for  the  glory  of  Lannes 
and  the  capture  of  Hohenlohe's  division  at  Prenzlow, 
and,  this  morning,  in  default  of  Turkish  fire  and  salvoes  of 
artillery,  they  talked. 

"It  was  just  such  a  raw  and  foggy  Saturday  morning  as 
this,"  said  one  of  Davout's  grenadiers  to  a  conscript  of  the 


314  Schonbrunn 

Young  Guard,  "but  instead  of  the  Danube  and  Enzersdorf 
we  had  the  Saale  and  Hassenhausen.  Just  after  daybreak, 
I  was  squat  on  a  ridge;  I  had  taken  off  one  of  my  boots  to 
get  rid  of  the  pine-needles  when  I  saw — well,  'twas  Iik6  a 
bit  of  lovely  colour,  pink  and  white  and  pearl  and  blue  on 
the  mist — coming  straight  at  me.  Quick  as  lightning, — • 
'By  God,  they  are  charging  us!'  thought  I;  and  old  Bliicher 
it  was  and  his  hussars,  coming  bang  on  us,  like  bewigged 
devils  out  of  the  fog." 

"To-day  is  Saturday,  Jules,  that  was  a  Thursday,"  said 
a  disconcertingly  quiet  voice  on  the  narrator's  left. 

"You  were  there,  perhaps?" 

"No;  but  I  was  at  Jena  the  same  morning.  It  couldn't 
be  Thursday  at  Jena  and  Saturday  at  Auerstadt,  only 
three  miles  away,  could  it?" 

"Well,  our  twenty  thousand  beat  sixty  thousand  Prus- 
sians, Bliicher  and  all,  which  is  more  than  you  did  at  Jena. 
Saturday  or  Thursday,  though  le  petit  bougre  himself  was 
with  you." 

"Right  you  are.  Vive  Davout,  vive  le  Troisieme  Corps ! " 
shouted  a  dozen  voices. 

Of  all  the  marshals,  Davout  at  this  period  commanded  the 
greatest  confidence  amongst  the  rank  and  file.  Every 
survivor  of  Auerstadt  had  seen  him  that  October  morning 
rushing  from  regiment  to  regiment,  his  face  blackened 
with  powder,  his  coat  in  tatters,  persuading,  exhorting, 
encouraging,  or  terrible  in  his  rebuke — compelling  his  men 
to  be  steadfast,  to  stick  to  their  positions,  and  not  to  waste 
a  cartridge. 

Then  more  argument  and  more  narrative. 

It  was  between  seven  and  eight  o'clock.  The  sun  hung 
as  a  disc  of  dull  orange  above  the  levels  of  the  Marchfeld; 
but  white  mists  still  trailed  along  the  Danube,  here  draping 
the  steep  banks,  forest-crowned,  there  veiling  the  dripping 
tarpaulins  of  barges  laden  with  corn  and  fruit,  or  the  cluster- 


Napoleon's  Address  to  His  Guard    315 

ing  masts  and  pennons  of  the  many-languaged,  many- 
hued  craft  from  every  port  between  Ratisbon  and  Rustchuk. 
Near  Enzersdorf,  four  miles  to  the  west  of  Vienna,  where 
this  talk  on  Jena  was  going  on,  the  twenty-third  company 
was  dribbling  into  camp  from  reveille  drill.  As  they 
marched  they  sang,  as  men  sing  who  are  happy  or  in  high 
spirits.  The  rat-a-tat  of  kettledrums  heightened  the 
gaiety. 

"Buvons,  enfans  de  la  patrie, 
Abattons  les  bouteilles,  abattons! 
Bai-aisons  les  belles  femmes,  bai-aisons!" 

The  new-comers  fraternized  with  the  grenadiers  about 
the  bivouac  fires,  the  faces  again  became  the  masks  of  bore- 
dom or  bad  temper,  of  gaiety,  or  vigilant  anxiety  such  as 
marks  the  faces  of  men  who  cherish  some  fierce  but  pre- 
carious hope. 

A  grenadier,  stretched  out  by  himself  with  his  back 
against  the  stem  of  a  chestnut,  watched  the  scene.  To  the 
talk  of  Jena  and  Auerstadt  he  had  at  first  not  even  listened, 
but  a  look  of  listless  curiosity  gradually  illumined  his  hag- 
gard, sunburnt  features.  He  made  no  effort,  however,  to 
approach  the  group. 

He  was  a  Champagnard  and  his  name  was  Pierre  Lestocq. 
Like  the  other  "veterans"  of  the  Guard,  he  was  not  more 
than  six  and  thirty ;  but  his  long  drooping  moustaches  were 
already  grizzled.  Severely  wounded  at  Znaim,  he  had  just 
recovered  when  he  was  struck  down  by  "hospital"  fever, 
and  though  dismissed  two  days  ago  as  "cured,"  he  knew  in 
his  heart  that  he  was  "done  for. " 

"And  I'm  damned  glad  of  it, "  he  had  said  to  a  comrade. 
"I've  had  my  fill  of  war  and  peace." 

Stubbornly  resisted  at  first,  this  life-weariness  as  well  as 
war-weariness  had  become  oppressive  as  sleep  in  his  limbs 
at  the  end  of  a  long  forced  day's  march. 


316  Schonbrunn 

Pierre  Lestocq  was  one  of  thousands  of  French  soldiers 
whose  lives  at  this  epoch  had,  in  sheer  crude  truth,  been  but 
a  battle  and  a  march.  Seventeen  years  ago  the  cannon- 
ade of  Valmy  had  ushered  in  a  period  of  almost  incessant 
warfare,  in  which  Aspern  and  Wagram  were  the  most  recent 
episodes.  These  were  the  men  whom  the  Revolution  had 
made  Frenchmen,  giving  them  the  consciousness  that  the 
soil  they  tilled,  the  land  for  which  they  fought,  was  in  very 
deed  theirs,  that  France  was  not  a  stepmother  any  longer, 
but  a  true  motherland.  Lestocq  himself  had  in  him  some- 
thing of  Lazare  Hoche's  temper,  but  nothing  of  Hoche's  ge- 
nius for  war;  nevertheless  to  him,  as  to  Hoche,  the  discovery 
of  a  tattered  copy  of  Rousseau's  Contrat  Social  had  brought 
as  it  were  a  message  from  on  high. 

"You  speak  of  the  ancien  regime?"  he  would  say  to  the 
younger  conscripts,  jibbing  at  the  ceaseless  wars.  ' '  What  did 
that  do  for  you?  It  murdered  your  father  by  forced  labour 
and  your  mother  by  hunger.  And  what  has  the  Revolution 
done  for  you?  It  has  made  you  men;  given  you  and  me 
something  to  live  for — or  to  die  for.  Oh  yes,  I've  seen 
ugliness  enough  during  a  battle  and  after  it,  blood  and  grim 
death  enough;  but  I  have  seen  nothing  so  terrifying  as  the 
things  I've  seen  in  peace  on  the  edge  of  a  wood.  I  was  a 
boy  then  and  I  daresay  I  thought  them  'funny.'  They 
are  hell  to  my  memory  now;  hell  to  me  in  my  dreams.  Did 
you  ever  see  the  teeth  and  lips  of  dead  men  who  had  eaten 
nothing  but  grass  for  three  months?  A  battlefield  is  nasty, 
desperately  nasty;  but,  fichtre,  it's  beautiful  beside  that 
sight.  To  die  in  battle  is  to  die  a  wolf's  death,  if  you  like, 
but,  wolves  or  not,  we  know  what  we're  dying  for." 

Yet  Pierre  Lestocq  was  not  by  any  means  a  "born" 
fighter.  He  had  "time  to  be  afraid."  After  fifteen  years 
of  war  he  had  still  to  goad  himself  into  the  firing  line. 
"Curse  on  you!"  he  would  say  to  himself  when  the  order 
to  charge  flashed  along  the  ranks.  "Would  you  die  a  free 


Napoleon's  Address  to  His  Guard    317 

man,  or  live  and  go  back  to  serfdom?"  And  in  the  mele'e, 
when  the  bullets,  like  a  roof  of  death,  came  lower  and  lower 
down  over  him,  he  had  to  repeat  the  adjuration,  "Curse  on 
you,  would  you  live  forever?" 

It  was  the  Champagnard  peasant's  version  of  Turenne's 
adjuration  to  his  own  terror  on  the  morning  of  Nordlingen, 
"Tu  trembles,  carcasse,  et  tu  tremblerais  davantage  si  tu 
connaissais  ou  je  te  porte. " 

II 

In  the  group  of  veterans  and  conscripts  nearest  to  the 
tree  under  which  Pierre  Lestocq  was  lying,  the  talk  of  Jena 
had  fizzled  out  most  rapidly. 

A  short,  lean,  merry-eyed  infantryman  pronounced  its 
epitaph : 

"Jena!  Nom  de  Dieu,  what  I  want  to  know  is  when  le 
petit  bougre  means  to  sign  this  peace  and  let  us  see  France 
again?" 

He  was  a  Picard,  wiry  and  agile  as  a  monkey,  and  as  ugly. 

"Yes,"  said  another,  "we'll  celebrate  his  Jena  in  Mont- 
martre — when  we  get  there." 

Wooden  huts  and  white  tents  dotted  the  ground  for  a 
circuit  of  a  mile.  On  the  flat  roof  of  a  granary  built  of 
brick,  to  the  left  of  the  bivouac  fire,  officers'  linen  was  dry- 
ing. A  quarter  of  a  mile  away,  close  to  one  of  the  streamlets 
into  which  the  Danube  at  this  part  divides,  stood  a  saw-mill. 
Now  and  then  the  grenadiers  round  the  fire  looked  lazily 
in  its  direction,  watching  the  automatic  motions  of  their 
comrades  lifting  a  tree-trunk,  holding  it  to  the  saw  and  then 
flinging  down  the  planks.  On  the  sand  beside  the  Picard 
a  piece  of  rusty  sheet-iron  served  as  a  trencher  for  several 
haunches  of  raw  horseflesh.  These  were  cut  into  shreds 
and  dropped  from  time  to  time  into  the  savoury  mess  stew- 
ing in  front  of  him. 


318  Schonbrunn 

Lifting  the  lid  of  a  saucepan  the  Picard  made  a  comic 
grimace,  replaced  it,  and,  poking  a  conscript  in  the  ribs, 
demanded : 

"It's  seven  months  to-day  since  I  left  Joinville.  Why 
don't  you  go  and  make  le  petit  bougre  come  to  terms  with 
these  accursed  Austrians?  But  its  le  petit  bougre1 s  way," 
he  went  on  philosophically.  "He  knows  what  passes  in  a 
soldier's  mind;  he  knows  what  we  can  and  what  we  cannot 
do;  yes,  and  how  much  we  can  bear.  Nom  de  Dieu,  at 
Boulogne  just  when  every  man  of  us  spat  at  the  sight  of  salt 
water,  piff !  comes  the  word, — Not  to  London  this  time,  mes 
enfants — but  to  the  Danube  and  Vienna!  That's  his  way. 
Oh,  he's  great,  great  and  sudden!" 

He  turned  to  his  saucepans,  hissing  between  his  teeth 
a  parody  of  the  Qa  ira: 

"Bloody  your  bayonets,  brothers, 
Bloody  your  bayonets,  ho! 
Bloody  your  bayonets,  brothers, 
Or  down  to  hell  you'll  go." 

Napoleon's  armies  had  ceased  to  sing  the  great  songs  of  the 
Revolution  but  under  the  parodies  the  tunes  and  something 
of  the  old  inspiration  smouldered. 

"Shut  up!"  cried  a  good-looking  Gascon,  raising  himself 
on  his  elbow  and  surveying  the  Picard  angrily.  '-'Can't 
you  let  a  fellow  sleep?" 

A  girl's  voice  between  two  neighbouring  tents  interrupted 
the  altercation:  "Plums,  ripe  plums!  Apples  and  apri- 
cots and  peaches." 

She  was  a  Viennese,  blonde-haired  and  blue-eyed,  a 
favourite  with  the  twenty-third.  She  wore  the  long  redin- 
gote  anglaise  then  fashionable  in  every  class;  her  smiling 
face  looked  out  from  the  depths  of  her  huge  cylindrical  hat 
like  a  pixie's  from  the  bottom  of  a  well.  She  had  neither  the 
vivacity  nor  the  effrontery  of  the  French  vivandiere  and  now 


Napoleon's  Address  to  His  Guard    319 

as  though  fatigued  she  put  down  her  basket  and  began  to 
fasten  a  shoe-strap.  A  pattern  in  crimson  silk  was  worked 
on  her  black  stockings. 

There  was  an  instant  rush  to  her  assistance;  hustled, 
breathless,  laughing,  blushing,  she  sat  down  and  let  a  dozen 
hands  adjust  her  shoe. 

Yet  the  fruit  did  not  sell.  Dysentery  was  in  the  camp, 
and  an  order  of  the  day  had  forbidden  the  consumption  of 
any  fruit  except  that  served  out  as  rations.  Lotte  was 
turning  away  in  a  pique;  but  one  of  Letort's  dragoons  caught 
her  waist  and  attempted  to  reach  the  red  lips  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  cylindrical  cap.  The  grenadiers,  who  regarded 
Lotte  as  their  perquisite,  sprang  to  their  feet. 

"Bayonet  him!  NomdeDieu!  Does  he  think  Lotte's  a 
sack  of  beans  for  his  horse?  A  la  lanterne!" 

The  marching  song  of  the  men  accompanying  a  waggon  of 
wheat  to  the  granary  diverted  them  and  they  joined  lustily 
in  the  refrain:  ( 

"Marie,  trempe  ton  pain, 

Marie,  trempe  ton  pain, 

Marie,  trempe  ton  pain, 

Dans  1'eau  claire. " 

It  reminded  them  of  Paris;  for  it  was  Jouy's  own  travesty 
of  the  most  famous  scene  in  La  Vestale.  Suddenly  the 
homesick  chorus  stopped. 

"Thunder,  what's  that?" 

It  was  a  bugle:  the  sound  rose  a  mile  away,  clear  and 
sweet,  cleaving  the  morning  stillness. 

Had  Bessieres,  the  commander  of  the  Guard,  unexpect- 
edly returned?  The  grenadiers  strained  their  eyes  through 
the  mists.  A  gunner,  with  stern  eyes  and  well-cut  features, 
seated  in  the  waggon,  stood  up  on  the  shafts  and  stared  also 
through  the  fog. 

Again   the   bugle-call   rose,    sharper,  more    threatening 


320  Schonbrunn 

and  much  nearer;  and  instantly,  to  the  right  and  to  the 
left,  it  was  answered;  nearer  and  yet  nearer  came  other 
answering  calls,  that  sprang,  as  it  were,  from  the  very 
earth  close  beside  the  excited  men.  And  now  towards  the 
Danube,  across  the  levels,  human  figures  were  seen  running 
between  the  tents  towards  a  certain  point.  The  gunner 
sprang  from  the  shaft,  spat  on  the  ground,  and  putting  his 
hands  to  his  mouth,  rent  the  air  with  a  yell: 

"Vive  1'Empereur!  Vive  1'Empereur!  Vive  1'Emper- 
eur!" 

He  sprang  forwards.  Every  man  followed.  In  an  in- 
stant the  black  sanded  flat  about  the  tents  was  a  desert. 
The  Picard  glanced  frantically  from  his  saucepans  to  his 
flying  comrades;  darted  after  them  for  a  yard  or  two, 
then  back  again  to  his  saucepans;  but  at  the  blast  of  a 
trumpet  that  to  his  ears  seemed  like  the  trumpet  of  the 
Judgment  Day,  he  thrust  the  pans  firm  in  the  flames, 
jammed  on  the  lids,  and  rushed  with  the  others. 

They  did  not  rush  far;  for  yonder,  enhaloed,  as  it  were, 
by  those  trumpet-calls  as  by  a  rainbow  arch  of  glory  rising 
above  him,  yonder  sat  Napoleon,  tranquil,  on  the  white 
charger  Solyman. 

He  was  wearing  the  famous  grey  coat,  old  as  his  hat, 
its  flaps  dropping  below  his  spurs — the  coat  that  on  winter 
nights  in  Poland  they  had  seen  whirled  about  him  by  the 
blast,  wrinkled  and  white  with  ice  and  frozen  snow. 

Before  the  Emperor  had  uttered  a  word  every  man  knew 
that  the  wish  of  his  heart  was  fulfilled.  Their  war-weari- 
ness was  ended;  their  homesickness  cured.  The  Peace 
had  been  signed. 

Chasseurs  and  fusiliers,  light  horse  and  heavy  guns, 
voltigeurs  cuirassiers,  lancers,  sappers,  gunners,  grenadiers, 
and  pontoonists — yonder  he  sat,  the  realization  of  each 
man's  wish  personified.  Companies  and  squadrons,  tum- 
bling out  of  workshops,  mills,  booths,  from  wooden  bar- 


Napoleon's  Address  to  His  Guard    321 

racks  or  from  canvas  tents,  fell  into  their  places,  fastening 
bandoliers  or  straps — a  thick  wall,  a  field  crested  with 
gleaming  brass  or  crested  with  shakos,  with  black  hair  or 
crimson  aigrettes  or  feathered  hats. 

Ill 

Pierre  Lestocq,  the  sick  grenadier,  got  slowly  on  his  feet. 
The  transport,  the  joy  throbbing  around  him,  affected  him; 
but  it  affected  him  as  the  cry  "Fight  on!"  might  affect  the 
soldier  who  has  got  his  death-wound,  and  knows  it.  Yes, 
he  was  dying;  but,  by  God,  he  was  glad  to  have  lived,  and 
Napoleon — the  religion  in  which  he  had  lived — was  yonder ! 
Everlasting  rest — the  religion  in  which  he  could  now  die — 
that  too  was  near. 

And  north,  west,  south,  and  east,  at  Znaim,  Gratz,  Brunn, 
Linz  were  his  co-religionists — the  legions  to  whom  Bonaparte 
was  as  a  fate,  the  legions  whose  devotion  was  to  him  not  less 
as  a  fate — a  religion,  that  is  to  say,  a  wish,  an  ideal,  a  pur- 
pose, a  watchword,  for  which  a  man  is  prepared  to  fight  to 
the  death,  name  it  "Liberty, "  name  it  "France, "  or  simply 
"the  greatness  of  man." 

Pierre  listened,  dazed,  breathless;  imagining  rather  than 
seeing  the  Emperor's  face.  Shout  after  shout  rent  the  air. 

' '  Vive  1'Empereur !    Vive  1'Empereur ! ' ' 

A  vast  silence  followed.  Napoleon  was  speaking.  At 
first,  for  the  beating  of-  his  arteries,  Pierre  could  not  hear 
a  syllable. 

Again,  an  immense  shout,  a  shout  of  passionate,  long 
expected  joy  and  deliverance ;  then  once  more  an  abrupt  and 
complete  silence.  The  Emperor  had  raised  his  voice,  and, 
listening  intently  Pierre  could  distinguish  the  shrill,  raucous 
Corsican  accent  softened  by  distance.  Napoleon,  as  al- 
ways, was  speaking  rapidly,  not  rising  in  his  stirrups,  as 
when  he  made  a  harangue  to  his  army  or  distributed  the 


322  Schonbrunn 

eagles  in  the  Place  de  Carrousel,  but  sitting  well  down 
in  his  saddle.  Nevertheless,  the  unpremeditated  sentences 
ordered  themselves  into  cadences. 

"Soldiers!  Your  standards  in  the  spring  of  this  year 
flew  from  Paris  to  the  walls  of  Vienna  in  thirty-one  days. 
You  fought  on  your  march  eleven  pitched  battles  and 
twenty-seven  combats.  You  scattered  or  destroyed  an  army 
of  five  hundred  thousand  men  who,  whilst  you  in  Spain 
were  hunting  the  English  leopards  to  the  sea,  had  dared 
to  insult  your  frontiers.  Soldiers !  To-morrow  you  return 
to  Paris  and  to  France.  Will  your  journey  in  peace  be  more 
rapid  than  that  by  which  you  marched  across  your  defeated 
enemy  to  Vienna?" 

Many  did  not  at  once  seize  the  point ;  but  in  an  instant  the 
insinuation  that  they  had  marched  through  the  ranks  of 
their  enemies  as  if  they  were  nothing  leapt  from  mouth  to 
mouth.  The  soldiers  burst  into  a  roar  of  enthusiasm  and 
laughter,  amid  which  the  cries  of  "Vive  1'Empereur!" 
rose  piercingly,  like  joyous  sword-points  flung  on  high. 

A  sarcasm,  taunting  but  indignant,  at  the  perjury  and 
perfidy  of  the  Habsburgs  followed.  God's  vengeance  had 
struck  Austria  down,  Napoleon  said,  and  then  by  three  or 
four  rapid  touches  the  campaign  was  made  to  live  before 
the  soldiers'  eyes. 

"In  April  you  fought  five  battles  in  five  days.  It  is 
named  the  campaign  of  Ratisbon.  In  May  you  scattered 
at  Aspern  and  at  Essling  an  army  of  a  hundred  and  eighty 
thousand  men." 

And  then  he  cited  incidents  of  the  fight  and  of  the  weeks 
at  Lobau ;  but  individual  names  were  not  mentioned ;  he  was 
speaking  to  the  army,  and  the  deeds  of  the  army  made  his 
theme.  Yet,  as  if  under  compulsion,  he  named  his  stepson, 
Eugene.  In  June,  on  the  anniversary  of  Marengo,  Eugene 
had  gained  the  victory  of  Raab.  Twelve  days  later  at 
Gratz,  the  84th  regiment  had  displayed  a  heroism  not  sur- 


Napoleon's  Address  to  His  Guard    323 

passed  in  the  annals  of  war.  There,  for  fourteen  hours, 
Gambini,  with  only  seven  hundred  bayonets,  had  held  at 
bay  an  army  of  ten  thousand  Croats. 

"Such  are  your  victories.  And  in  the  pause  between 
those  victories  your  engineers  astonished  the  world  by  erect- 
ing in  fifteen  days  three  bridges  across  the  broadest,  deepest, 
and  swiftest  river  of  Europe.  Our  detractors  have  taunted 
us  with  the  bridges  of  Caesar  and  of  Trajan.  But  the  bridge 
which  in  four  days  Caesar  threw  across  the  Rhine  could  not 
have  borne  the  weight  of  a  single  gun.  Your  bridge  of 
sixty  arches  across  the  Danube  was  broad  enough  to  permit 
three  carriages  to  cross  abreast,  and  yet  strong  enough  to 
support  the  weight  of  four  hundred  cannon.  But,  they  say, 
you  are  not  the  first.  Trajan  too,  they  allege,  threw  a 
bridge  across  the  Danube.  In  this  your  detractors  speak 
history;  but  though  he  chose  a  point  where  its  course  is 
slow  and  its  banks  narrow,  it  yet  took  the  Roman  engineers 
three  years  to  build  it.  You  built  your  bridge  in  three 
weeks !  Who  henceforth  shall  dare  to  compare  the  bridges 
of  Caesar  and  Trajan  with  that  structure  of  yours  which  rose 
with  the  solidity  of  iron  and  the  speed  of  fire  in  order  that 
my  legions  might  cross  it  to  their  harvest  of  glory  on  the 
fields  of  Wagram  and  Znaim?" 

The  tumult  became  a  frenzy,  enthusiasm  passing  and 
returning,  replicated  from  man  to  man;  tears,  laughter, 
cries ;  men  gesticulated ;  men  embraced  each  other,  or  stood 
apart,  silent  and  unmoving  as  trees. 

Pierre  Lestocq,  in  a  zigzag  line,  staggered  forward.  He 
was  now  trembling  in  every  limb;  in  all  his  frame  was  a 
mortal  faintness,  a  mortal  lightness.  He  reached  the  stem 
of  a  second  tree  and  then  a  third.  The  trodden  grass,  the 
listening  crowd,  the  distant  hills,  Napoleon's  face,  all  dis- 
appeared. It  was  the  pas  de  charge  of  the  Guard  that  he 
heard.  Napoleon  was  leading  them.  A  glory  was  in  the 
air.  He  stood  fiercely  erect.  Heroisms  and  splendours 


324  Schonbrunn 

flamed  around  him.  Life's  greatness  had  closed  in  a 
wrestle  with  death's  greatness. 

"Vive  1'Empereur!"  he  shouted  between  his  clenched 
teeth,  and  like  a  suffocating  sob,  the  echo  "Vive  1'Em- 
pereur!" died  in  his  throat. 

His  head  dropped  on  his  breast;  he  struggled  against  the 
engulfing  darkness,  and,  as  in  a  light-halo,  he  saw  again 
Napoleon's  forehead,  the  seat  and  very  throne  of  god-like 
power  and  will. 

"Vive  1'Empereur!"  he  shouted. 

Death  was  grasping  at  his  face.  There  was  a  sound  in  his 
ears  as  of  up-rushing  waters;  a  sensation  in  his  brain  as  if 
innumerable  curtains  of  darkness  were  closing  in  upon  him, 
like  an  enemy  with  rapid  and  precipitate  rushes.  Still 
struggling,  he  sank,  stiffening  himself  out  on  the  earth,  his 
shoulders  propped  on  the  tree  trunk. 

Meanwhile  the  immense  silence  had  again  come  down 
upon  the  listening  soldiers.  The  Emperor  had  resumed  his 
harangue. 

"Thus  to  your  past  glories  you  have  added  this  glory — 
the  right  to  have  it  said  of  you  by  your  country  and  by 
posterity,  'He  was  of  the  Army  of  the  Danube  and  of  Ger- 
many.' They  shall  point  to  the  trophies  of  this  war,  to 
that  enduring  monument  now  rising  in  your  city,  that  city 
which  is  already  the  capital  of  the  world,  a  monument 
forged  from  the  cannon  captured  on  the  fields  of  Ratisbon, 
Eckmuhl,  Aspern-Essling,  and  Wagram;  they  shall  point  out 
to  each  other  objects  of  art  that  shall  adorn  your  public 
buildings,  and  they  shall  say,  'These  are  the  spoils  of  per- 
jured Austria!" 

Suddenly  Napoleon's  voice  changed.  The  pallid  mask 
of  his  face  remained  unaltered;  but  his  eyes,  blue  now  as 
the  blue  of  the  sky  reflected  in  sword  blades,  filmed,  and 
their  look  became  blacker  and  intenter.  In  the  silence  the 
champing  of  a  horse's  bit  was  as  distinct  as  though  that 


Napoleon's  Address  to  His  Guard    325 

packed  arena  were  an  empty  hall,  or  a  reaped  field  across 
which  a  peasant  was  trudging  in  the  morning  stillness 
to  his  day's  work,  and  in  that  awed  silence  were  heard  the 
words,  stern,  yet  cadenced  like  a  lament: 

"Soldiers!  On  your  homeward  march  you  will  pass  the 
graves  of  your  comrades.  Salute  them  as  I  salute  them. 
They  sleep  the  sleep  of  their  glory.  Their  names  shall 
stand  on  the  monuments  of  their  country.  You  yourselves 
by  your  bivouac  fires  have  told  their  history.  Their  deeds 
are  graven  forever  in  the  memories  of  men.  Many  things 
pass ;  glory  such  as  this  endures.  In  age  after  age,  when  the 
living  shall  most  wish  to  live  greatly  and  to  feel  and  to  speak 
greatly,  they  shall  single  out  your  actions  and  the  actions  of 
your  dead  comrades  and  find  that  greatest  life  in  the  praise 
of  your  battles." 

The  hush  of  awe,  the  tears,  the  surprise,  the  silence  of 
stupor,  then  the  frantic  burst  of  shouting,  attested  the 
power  which,  after  ten  years,  Napoleon's  "fire-streaming 
words,"  as  Grillparzer  described  them,  still  possessed  over 
the  French  mind.  The  awe  which  had  stilled  the  listeners 
was  an  awe  at  once  for  the  living  who  spoke  and  for  the  dead 
who  had  died  for  him.  A  funeral  cortege  followed  by  the 
grey  spectres  of  the  fallen  had  seemed  to  pass — yet  what  a 
splendour  environed  it! 

Napoleon's  bulletins  and  his  harangues  might  exaggerate 
or  distort  the  achievements  of  his  armies,  but  they  were 
winged  in  every  word  with  the  heroism  which  had  won 
them.  The  man  who  had  the  genius  to  win  their  battles 
had  also  the  genius  to  describe  them. 

Satisfied  with  the  effect,  Napoleon  turned  his  horse,  and, 
surrounded  by  his  suite,  rode  slowly  towards  Schonbrunn. 

IV 

Yet  crowds,  as  though  Napoleon  and  his  white  charger 
were  still  there,  lingered  about  the  spot;  then  slowly  in  knots 


326  Schonbrunn 

of  two  and  three  or  ten  and  twelve  began  to  disperse,  com- 
menting on  the  peace,  guessing  at  its  terms,  commenting  on 
the  harangue;  excited,  laughing,  gesticulating.  The  eyes  of 
many  were  wet.  A  few  were  sombre  and  silent. 

Amongst  the  first  to  fly  back  to  his  saucepans  and  the 
bivouac  fire,  was  the  Picard. 

"Did  I  not  tell  you?"  he  cried  excitedly.  "Just  as 
at  Austerlitz.  That's  le  petit  bougre's  way.  You  think 
you  are  going  to  Peking  or  to  Moscow?  Piff!  The 
word  is  Paris!  'Baisons,  enfans  de  la  patrie!'  Nom 
de  Dieu!  Where's  my  frying-pan?  Oh  that  hell's  pup 
dragoon  ..." 

The  saucepans  were  still  there  but  the  frying-pan  was 
gone.  Incredulous,  he  searched  frantically  in  every  direc- 
tion ;  he  did  not  seem  to  have  been  absent  five  seconds. 

Hot  and  flurried,  now  erect,  now  stooping,  "Jules! 
Pierre!"  he  called.  "What  the  devil—!  Why  don't  you 
answer?" 

Jules  was  invisible. 

The  Picard  glanced  swiftly  at  the  figure  of  Pierre  Lestocq 
outstretched  in  his  long  grey  coat,  his  shoulder  against  the 
tree,  his  heavy  cap  thrown  forwards  on  his  brow.  His 
left  arm  hung  loose.  A  dead  leaf  had  fallen  between  the 
thumb  and  finger  of  his  right  hand.  He  did  not  stir.  It 
was  impossible  to  see  his  expression,  but  the  attitude  was 
that  of  deep  rest. 

"Asleep,  and  the  Emperor  speaking!  Fichtre,  that's 
odd!" 

Ferretting  everywhere,  his  eyes  at  last  caught  sight  of  the 
frying-pan  thrown  under  the  flap  of  a  tent  door;  but  its 
savoury  contents  were  gone.  Gone  too  was  Lotte,  gone 
the  three  evil-looking  camp-followers,  two  male,  one  female, 
who  like  gnomes  had  seemed  to  emerge  from  the  earth 
during  the  soldiers'  first  absorption  in  Napoleon's  presence. 
Could  the  thieves  have  been  those  two  bitches? 


Napoleon's  Address  to  His  Guard    327 

His  face  cleared  a  little.  If  it  were  not  the  cavalry  who 
had  the  laugh  on  him,  it  would  matter  less. 

The  crowd  rapidly  thickening  round  the  fire  gave  him 
little  time  to  pursue  his  investigations.  Some  demanded 
food,  some  drink,  some  tobacco;  some  took  snuff;  all 
talked. 

The  inmost  meaning  of  the  incident  alone  was  endurable. 

"The  Peace!" 

Yesterday  it  had  seemed  a  commonplace,  a  certainty, 
each  man's  secret  wish;  to-day  it  seemed  a  miracle,  an 
incredible  thing,  because  it  had  happened.  Time  was 
needed  to  understand  it.  And  already  the  bitterness  which 
in  life  lurks  at  the  bottom  of  every  sweetness  was  making 
itself  felt. 

"  Peace?  And  for  how  long?  To  France  to-morrow;  but 
how  long  to  stay  there?" 

France  and  the  army  had  been  promised  peace  after 
Austerlitz,  and  within  three  months  there  was  war  with 
Prussia;  they  had  been  promised  peace  after  Jena,  and 
within  one  month  there  was  war  with  Russia;  they  had  been 
promised  a  long,  a  sure,  a  lasting  peace  after  Tilsit,  and 
within  seven  months  there  was  war  with  Spain;  and  from 
the  Sierras  they  had  hurried  to  the  Danube. 

"But  this  time?" 

Jacques  Dupont,  the  gunner  with  the  stern  eyes  and 
finely  cut  features,  and  two  grenadiers  came  back  to  the 
fire.  The  Picard,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  said  nothing  about 
the  frying-pan.  The  four  sat  down. 

"Our  Emperor  has  pluck, "  said  the  gunner,  "that's  what 
I  like  in  him.  Intrepidite — that  is  his  name!  And  I  am 
just^beginning  to  take  in  his  idea,  to  realize  his  plan.  Gigan- 
tesque — mais  oui!  Paris  the  capital  of  Europe.  The  old 
families  not  our  enemies;  and  other  nations,  Spaniards, 
Germans,  Swedes,  Russians,  Poles,  Magyars,  not  our  ene- 
mies either,  but  competitors  with  France  in  the  race  for  glory. 


328  Schonbrunn 

Not  birth  any  longer — no  matter  whether  you  are  noble  or 
peasant,  German  or  Finn — manhood  and  genius  is  the 
thing — all  is  one  in  the  race  for  glory.  Nom  de  Dieu,  but 
it's  gigantic!  And,  by  God,  he  may  succeed." 

Jacques  Dupont  was  a  Norman,  transferred  after  Ratis- 
bon  from  Davout's  corps  to  the  Old  Guard.  He  had  the 
authentic  Viking  look,  rather  tall,  erect,  lean  and  sinewy, 
with  steel-blue  eyes,  close-cut  hair,  tightly  shut  cruel  mouth, 
forced  into  prominence  by  the  cheek-strap.  After  General 
Dupont's  surrender  at  Bayleu  he  had,  in  the  universal 
stupefaction  and  loathing,  wished  to  change  his  name;  but 
recognizing  the  futility  of  such  a  disguise,  he  had  determined 
to  wipe  out  that  disgrace  by  his  own  actions,  and,  by  his 
own  valour,  to  restore  the  lustre  of  the  name  he  bore.  He 
loved  glory  as  the  Picard  loved  a  breakfast;  he  was  as  cer- 
tain of  promotion  as  the  Picard  was  certain  to  remain  in  the 
ranks.  As  a  matter  of  history,  he  came  out  of  the  carnage 
of  Leipzig  four  years  later  as  the  captain  of  this  same 
company. 

"Where  do  you  and  I  come  in,  and  the  rest  of  us — that's 
what  I  want  to  know?"  the  Gascon  grumbled.  "Your 
great  man — it's  all  very  well;  but  where's  his  greatness 
without  us?  That  puzzles  me.  He's  Emperor,  lives  in  a 
palace " 

"And  we  shiver  in  a  hut  on  rotten  straw  when  we  can 
get  it?"  Dupont  said  quietly.  "That's  right  enough:  the 
thing  is  to  sleep  sound.  He's  Emperor,  but  he  can't  eat 
more'n  three  meals  a  day." 

The  others  listening,  nodded  acquiescence,  yielding  to  his 
natural  authoritativeness. 

"Nom  de  Dieu,  yes,"  the  Picard  joyously  asseverated, 
"but  you  are  a  savant,  Jacques.  That's  well  said. " 

And  happiness  and  excitement  raising  his  mind  to  an 
unaccustomed  height,  he  went  on, — "He  can  eat  no  more'n 
we  do,  that's  flat — and  one  girl's  like  another,  and  with 


Napoleon's  Address  to  His  Guard    329 

her  he  can  do  no  more'n  you  or  me.  It's  funny,  oh,  it's 
funny!  That's  fraternity  and  equality,  I  call  it.  And 
they  say  now  there's  neither  a  heaven  nor  a  hell — just 
nothing.  Nom  de  Dieu!  'Marie,  trempe  ton  pain,  ah! 
ah!  ah!  dans  1'eau  claire!'" 

"Where's  Pierre?"  Dupont  asked  in  his  quiet,  com- 
manding way.  Contrast  had  drawn  him  to  the  Cham- 
pagnard. 

"Can't  you  see?  Yonder — asleep.  Poor  devil.  He  has 
earned  it.  A  bayonet  in  his  shoulder-blade,  then  typhus — 
he's  had  his  guts'  full!" 

The  grenadiers  looked  in  the  direction  indicated.  The 
new-comer,  an  old  "brave"  of  tipsy  habits,  illiterate,  dirty, 
but  with  the  cross,  looked  longer  than  the  rest. 

' '  Pierre's  lying  rather  queer, ' '  he  said,  getting  up.  "  How 
long's  he  been  like  that?" 

He  had  seen  dead  men  lie  thus  on  many  battlefields. 

But  before  the  Picard  could  answer  four  cavalrymen, 
arm  in  arm,  came  swinging  along,  their  spurs  jingling 
pleasantly.  Their  company  was  to  move  towards  Linz 
next  day:  now  the  order  was  countermanded.  The  Picard 
eyed  them  suspiciously,  but  there  was  not  a  trace  of  mock- 
ery or  irony  on  their  fine  faces.  No:  the  two  drabs  of 
camp-followers,  not  the  dragoons,  had  stolen  his  mess. 

"Pierre!  Pierre  Lestocq!"  one  of  the  troopers  called 
suddenly.  "But  this  is  good!  Sacrebleu,  I  thought  he  had 
croaked  at  Molk.  Pierre,  mon  vieux,  Pierre,  old  boy!" 

Two  of  them,  as  their  accent  proved,  came  from  the  same 
province;  the  first  speaker  from  the  same  village  as  Pierre. 
Bending  over  him,  he  put  his  hand  affectionately  on  his 
shoulder. 

"  Pierre  mon  vieux  ..." 

He  started  back.  The  grenadiers  slouched  slowly  for- 
ward. All  became  unexpectedly  silent.  The  old  "brave" 
with  the  beery  countenance  knelt  down  beside  Pierre. 


33°  Schonbrunn 

"He's  croaked,"  he  said  briefly  and  stood  up,  brushing 
the  earth  from  his  knees. 

"Dead?" 

In  the  surprise,  accustomed  as  they  were  to  death,  a 
sound  that  came  from  the  direction  of  Nussdorf  or  Vienna 
escaped  their  notice  or  left  them  unmoved.  But  a  second 
sound  came  clearer  and  deeper.  They  looked  at  each  other, 
then  at  the  dead  man. 

' '  What's  up  now  ?    What's  that  firing  ? ' ' 

There  was  no  answer. 

A  staff  officer  on  a  fine  English  grey  rode  past.  He 
turned  his  freckled,  sunburnt  face  towards  the  group,  sur- 
veyed it  quietly  and  sped  on.  The  hue  of  his  uniform  was 
lost  in  the  mist  on  the  road  towards  the  city. 

The  grenadiers  looked  after  him.  What  message  was  he 
carrying  at  that  speed? 

In  the  camp  itself,  to  the  promiscuous  singing  and  shout- 
ing, a  burst  of  military  music  was  added,  drums  and  bugles, 
clear  and  shrill;  and  all  in  the  morning  light,  a  sparkling 
squadron  of  Nansouty's  cuirassiers,  the  October  sun  on 
their  helmets  and  swords,  trotted  gaily  across  the  level 
northward  of  the  camp. 

"I  saw  yesterday  that  Pierre  had  got  his  dose;  yes,  I 
did,"  the  Picard  asseverated.  "I  never  believed  he'd  see 
the  night  through.  Well,  what's  to  be  done  now?  He 
can't  lie  there.  Here,  lend  a  hand,  boys!" 

The  dragoon,  Pierre's  fellow-villager,  a  big,  soft-hearted 
fellow,  stepped  aside. 

Six  grenadiers,  at  the  Picard's  summons,  came  forward. 
Two  planks  were  hastily  constructed  into  a  bier,  and  bending 
over  the  dead  man,  they  lifted  him  to  their  shoulders,  bearing 
him  towards  some  wooden  sheds  that  rose  close  to  the  river. 

The  last  glittering  sound  of  Nansouty's  bugles  and  drums 
came  softer  and  softer  as  the  squadron  moved  towards 
Schonbrunn. 


CHAPTER  XI 

ON  THE  TRACK  OF  A  CRIME 


THE  court-martial  for  the  trial  of  Friedrich  Staps  was  to 
assemble  in  the  arsenal  that  same  afternoon,  Satur- 
day, the  1 4th  October,  at  four  o'clock.  Complete  secrecy 
was  enjoined.  No  member  of  the  commission  was  to  be 
informed  of  its  object  until  the  prisoner  was  before  his 
judges.  The  Emperor  reserved  to  himself  the  right  of 
confirming  or  annulling  the  sentence  of  the  court. 

A  peremptory  note  from  Napoleon  had,  at  an  early  hour, 
instructed  Savary  to  use  every  second  of  the  interval  in 
tracing  out  the  movements  of  the  accused  since  his  arrival 
in  Vienna.  "The  due  de  Rovigo,"  ran  the  missive,  "shall 
also  endeavour  to  ascertain  whether  in  the  city  itself,  or  in 
the  surrounding  villages,  the  prisoner  has  any  relatives, 
friends  or  acquaintances  who  may  have  acted  as  his  abet- 
tors if  not  as  his  accomplices." 

There  was  a  postscript. 

' '  The  due  de  Friuli  shall  have  access  to  the  prisoner  at 
any  hour. " 

This  at  once  alarmed  Savary.  Duroc,  "the  man  who 
never  shed  a  tear, "  was,  nevertheless,  a  Don  Quixote  in  the 
devices  he  invented  for  the  mitigation  of  Bonaparte's 
severities.  This  command  could  only  mean  the  Emperor's 
intention  of  pardoning  his  assailant. 


332  Schonbrunn 

Disturbed  and  irritated,  Savary  determined  to  take  the 
first  part  of  the  work  in  hand  personally.  At  Schonbrunn, 
especially  since  the  middle  of  August,  he  had  felt  himself 
and  his  work  to  be  under  surveillance.  His  most  trusted 
agents  had  been  tampered  with — either  by  Fouche,  anxious 
to  countermine  his  mines,  or  by  the  Emperor  himself, 
infected  with  the  disease  of  setting  one  army  of  spies  to 
watch  another  in  every  capital  city  and  in  every  camp  or 
headquarter  of  Europe. 

"But  in  this  business,"  thought  Savary,  "I  will  see  with 
my  own  eyes,  hear  with  my  own  ears." 

He  at  once  despatched  a  courier  to  Rapp  requesting  him 
to  meet  him  at  the  arsenal  at  ten  o'clock. 

Meantime,  he  summoned  his  confidential  chief  and  with 
him  went  over  the  results  of  the  investigations  pursued 
during  the  night.  The  prisoner's  account  of  himself  had 
been  verified.  A  young  man  answering  his  description  had 
lodged  for  ten  days  at  the  Goldener  Adler  inn  near  Nussdorf . 
Two  witnesses  had  seen  him  on  the  Schonbrunn  road, 
another  had  observed  him  in  a  small  cafe  in  Vienna.  Several 
additional  clues  had  been  followed  up;  four  arrests  had 
been  made;  but  the  police  had  discovered  nothing  that 
really  implicated  the  detained  persons  in  the  dastardly 
crime. 

Savary  looked  up  sharply  from  a  dossier  he  was  examining. 

"These  arrested  persons,"  he  demanded,  "do  they  know 
why  they  have  been  arrested?" 

The  chief,  who  had  the  dress  and  beard  if  not  the  counte- 
nance of  a  Greek  merchant,  answered  by  a  mournful  re- 
proachful shake  of  the  head.  How  could  his  master  imagine 
that  after  so  many  years  he  would  neglect  so  rudimentary 
a  precaution? 

"You  have  done  well,"  Savary  replied,  imitating  Napo- 
leon's manner. 

His  attention  once  more  riveted  itself  to  the  dossier. 


On  the  Track  of  a  Crime  333 

ii 

"Fanatic  or  hired  agent,  this  young  fool  is  unfit  to  live, " 
he  said  impatiently  to  Rapp  when,  an  hour  later,  they  met 
at  the  arsenal.  "No  recanting  should  get  him  a  pardon. 
His  brain  will  become  a  magazine  of  lies — against  you,  me, 
or  any  one.  He  will  have  our  reputations  and  even  our 
lives  in  his  power." 

Rapp's  considerate  but  not  very  penetrating  glance  rested 
on  Savary's  close-set,  foxy  eyes;  then,  averting  itself,  wan- 
dered to  the  iron  gloom  of  the  arsenal  walls. 

"  His  majesty  is  not  such  an  ass, "  he  said  bluffly.  "  Why 
should  he  suspect  you  or  rne?" 

Savary  did  not  deign  to  answer,  and,  after  a  rapid  explan- 
ation of  his  design,  and  a  sketch  of  the  story  of  a  French 
noble  in  search  of  a  young  German  as  a  "courier"  on  a 
journey  to  Pomerania  or  some  other  foggy  region,  he  and 
Rapp  proceeded  to  the  Burgplatz  to  hire  a  carriage. 

Both  officers  wore  forage  caps  and  the  undress  uniform  of 
colonels  of  the  Guard,  without  orders  or  decorations. 

In  the  "Old  City"  the  streets  were  thronged.  Rumours 
of  the  Peace  had  already  spread. 

In  the  square  before  the  royal  palace  workmen  with  their 
sleeves  rolled  up  were  piling  upon  carts  and  barrows  wreathes 
and  evergreens,  shrubs  and  flowers.  They  were  the  deco- 
rations of  last  night's  ball. 

French  sentinels  with  bayonets  fixed  still  marched  to  and 
fro  in  front  of  the  main  entrance. 

A  row  of  hackney  coaches  stood  in  front  of  the  garden 
railings.  The  drivers,  seeing  the  two  officers  on  foot,  began 
to  wave  their  long  whips.  The  lean  wretched-looking 
horses,  "too  lean  even  for  soup, "  stood  with  drooping  heads. 
Their  sides  were  striped  with  red  flesh.  The  sinews  of 
their  necks  were  in  places  uncovered  and  looked  like  raw 
wounds. 


334  Schonbrunn 

Savary,  after  haggling  over  the  fare,  engaged  the  likeliest 
hack. 

"Let  me  sit  this  side,  may  I?"  Rapp  asked,  taking  the 
left-hand  corner  of  the  carriage.  "  My  right  arm  this  morn- 
ing aches  like  hell. " 

Every  officer  in  the  army  knew  of  the  sabre-cuts  in  Rapp's 
right  arm  and  of  Napoleon's  famous  remark. 

" It  is  this  Danube  air, "  Savary  answered.  "I  too  begin 
to  feel  rheumatic." 


Ill 


Their  enterprise  was  not  without  danger.  In  the  north- 
ern villages  Vandamme's  savagery  had  made  the  French 
unpopular.  Stragglers  disappeared  with  a  frequency  which 
only  murder  could  explain.  Nussdorf,  the  chief  "river- 
port  "  for  two  hundred  miles,  was  crowded  with  loafers  and 
fugitives  from  justice  or  from  injustice — Slavs,  Magyars, 
Poles,  Croats,  Slovaks,  Serbs,  Roumanians. 

"If  the  Emperor  wishes  this  to  be  a  real  secret,"  Rapp 
observed  as  they  reached  the  open  country,  "he  acted  very 
unadvisedly  in  writing  so  precipitately  to  Fouche.  Every- 
thing shows  that  this  youngster  had  neither  confidant  nor 
accomplice." 

"You  never  can  tell,"  Savary  said  with  a  shrug. 

He  began  to  busy  himself  with  his  notes. 

Even  at  this  early  hour,  outside. Vienna,  knots  of  villagers 
or  citizens  in  holiday  attire  succeeded  each  other  on  the 
highway.  And  now  in  the  city  from  which  they  were  re- 
ceding the  bells  were  ringing — the  boom  of  St.  Stephen's 
huge  bell,  heard  by  the  Turks  two  centuries  ago;  the 
mellow-toned  St.  Eustathius;  St.  Peter's  in  the  Graben;  and 
finally  St.  John's. 

"One  would  suppose  these  damned  Germans  had  con- 
quered us,  not  we  them,"  Savary  said  morosely;  and  he 


On  the  Track  of  a  Crime  335 

turned  back  and  looked  at  the  city  which  in  the  morning 
light  spread  in  tranquil  loveliness  to  right  and  left. 

Rapp's  Alsatian  blood  resented  the  remark,  as  well  as 
the  tone  in  which  Savary  made  it.  It  seemed  intended  to 
wound. 

"The  truth  will  out, "  he  said  curtly.  "We  are  afraid  to 
remain  a  day  longer. "  And  touched  by  a  vague  sentiment 
he  let  his  eyes  wander  over  the  Wiener  woods. 

Everywhere  as  they  drove  northwards  they  encountered 
the  traces  of  war  and  the  destruction  wrought  by  war — the 
red  gashes  in  the  soil  dug  by  artillery;  the  fire-blackened 
gables  of  roofless  farms;  a  deserted  hamlet;  a  squalid 
assemblage  of  huts  named  a  "field-hospital,"  and  at  the 
doors  of  the  huts  or  in  a  trodden  field,  a  few  wretches, 
maimed  or  sick,  crawled  to  stare  at  the  noise  of  their 
wheels. 

"It  is  war;  yes,  it  is  war,"  Rapp  thought  and  shrugged 
aside  the  temptation  to  think. 

Savary,  his  right  arm  along  the  edge  of  the  carriage,  was 
sitting  with  knit  brows,  his  note-book  in  his  left  hand. 
Whenever  the  two  men  were  together  the  difference  in  their 
temperaments  was  certain  to  assert  itself.  Rapp  despised 
the  "police  de  caquetage"  and  was  already  bored  by  this 
morning's  business.  Savary  was  in  his  element.  His  am- 
bition was  on  the  alert.  If  this  incident  got  out  of  his 
hands  what  capital  might  not  Pouche*  make  of  it?  But  if 
he  succeeded 

To  Napoleon,  Savary  had  long  ago  become,  in  the  Jesuit 
phrase,  "like  a  stick  in  the  hands  of  a  man,"  and  the  gloom 
of  his  nature  made  him  naturally  the  executor  of  his  mas- 
ter's baser  will.  His  fidelity  was  his  ugliest  virtue.  "At  a 
word  from  me  Savary  would  stab  to  the  heart  his  own 
father."  The  mot  had  been  coined  by  Talleyrand,  but  it 
expressed  Napoleon's  conviction. 

As  the  carriage  bent  away  from  the  Danube,  the  roofs 


336  Schonbrunn 

of  Nussdorf  were  visible  on  their  right.  Savary  in  a  very 
short  time  ordered  the  carriage  to  stop,  and,  dismounting, 
dismissed  the  driver  and  the  two  officers  proceeded  on 
foot  to  a  picket  stationed  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away  where 
Vandamme's  main  body  had,  to  avoid  the  fever,  been  quar- 
tered on  the  high  ground.  They  enquired  the  way  to  the 
Goldener  Adler.  The  sentry  pointed  to  a  few  houses  hidden 
by  trees  less  than  a  mile  distant.  A  shorter  road  ran 
across  the  open  fields. 

They  crossed  two  fields,  and  all  at  once  found  themselves 
in  a  country  lane. 

"This  does  not  look  the  place  where  a  murder  would  be 
planned, "  Rapp  observed. 

Savary  seemed  not  to  have  heard  the  remark. 

The  air  all  round  was  sweet,  as  though  gardens  or  scented 
wild-flowers  were  near;  behind,  on  the  wooded  heights, 
the  noonday  stillness  brooded.  In  front  some  grey  strata 
of  quiet  clouds  slept  on  the  horizon.  The  hedgerow  on  their 
right  rose  through  a  spreading  undergrowth  of  brambles 
and  hemlock  to  a  height  of  eight  feet;  here  and  there  a 
solitary  spray  of  woodbine  gleamed  in  safe  inaccessibility. 
Near  its  farther  end  the  lane  passed  a  coppice  of  hazel  and 
birch,  the  haunt  of  nightingales  in  summer;  and  through  a 
gap  on  the  left  they  saw  a  meadow  where,  in  times  of  peace 
the  kine  would  have  been  ruminating  udder-deep  in  the  lush 
grass.  To-day  these  meadows  were  a  tangled  wilderness 
of  dead  nettles  and  fennel.  Half  a  mile  away,  on  the 
last  spur  of  the  Wienerwald,  was  a  herd  of  goats,  watched 
by  a  boy,  whilst  full  in  front,  clearly  visible  in  irregular 
lines  of  white  walls,  red  tiles,  or  thatched _roofs,  straggled 
the  village  they  were  seeking. 

IV 

A  walk,  or  rather  a  march,  of  a  few  minutes  brought  them 
out  in  front  of  the  Goldener  Adler.  Its  sign-board,  the 


On  the  Track  of  a  Crime  337 

double-headed  Austrian  eagle,  gold  upon  a  russet  ground, 
swung  unmoving  above  the  rusty,  weather-beaten  porch. 
The  garden  spread  in  a  luxuriance  of  weeds  behind  the 
house;  in  front,  on  a  patch  of  grass,  a  deserted  dove-cot, 
rotten  and  falling  to  pieces,  stood  on  the  top  of  a  pole; 
near  it,  a  heap  of  refuse  and  two  dismantled  carts. 

A  more  evil-looking  hostelry  could  hardly  be  imagined, 
even  in  Austria.  Murder  might  have  here  its  fixed  resi- 
dence. Trap  doors  inside,  a  secret  passage  or  two,  and 
beyond  it,  the  broad  tide  of  the  Danube  that  would  sweep 
away  every  trace  of  the  crime  forever. 

"This  looks  just  like  the  house  in  which  a  murder  might 
be  done,  eh,  mon  ami?"  Savary  said  sourly. 

It  was  his  answer  to  Rapp's  remark  in  the  lane. 

Rapp  looked  at  him,  but  did  not  retort;  for  before  his 
eyes  had  arisen  the  figure  of  a  German  boy,  footsore  and 
weary,  turning  aside  after  a  long  day's  tramp  to  seek  rest 
in  this  lonely  inn.  " Mon  Dieu, "  he  asked  himself,  "medi- 
tating murder,  did  he  select  for  his  last  halting-place  a  house 
that  seemed  dedicated  to  murder?" 

Savary,  meanwhile,  had  tapped  sharply  on  the  door 
with  his  sword-hilt. 

There  was  no  answer. 

"Are  you  sun-struck?"  he  asked  Rapp;  then,  coming  up 
close  to  him,  he  whispered:  "A  word  of  counsel.  There  is 
no  sense  in  showing  too  much  policy  merely  to  be  told  lies. 
A  little  manly  maladroitness  often  elicits  the  truth.  You 
take  my  meaning?" 

There  was  shrewdness  in  Savary's  estimate  of  his  com- 
panion. Conscious  of  his  own  frankness,  Rapp  was  just 
the  man  to  throw  off  his  natural  manner,  and,  aiming  at 
over-subtlety,  ruin  all. 

"I  will  obey,  monsieur  le  due,"  he  answered  with  ironic 
ceremoniousness. 

At  the  end  of  a  dark  passage  they  found  the  guest-room, 


338  Schonbrunn 

raftered  with  oak,  low,  badly  lighted,  and  smelling  of  stale 
tobacco  and  beer.  A  grimy  wooden  crucifix  rose  in  a  corner ; 
a  cup  of  holy  water  stood  at  the  door.  Above  the  fireplace 
there  were  outlined  two  clean  spaces  where  two  fowling- 
pieces  had  once  hung.  The  edict  of  disarmament  had  ex- 
tended even  to  such  weapons.  The  stillness  was  unbroken 
even  by  the  buzz  of  a  fly. 

Savary's  second  imperative  knock  on  the  wooden  table 
was  answered  after  a  time  by  the  sound  of  heavy  footsteps, 
and  the  landlord  appeared. 

He  looked  from  one  to  the  other  of  his  two  guests.  A 
cunning  expression  came  into  his  eyes,  and  his  mouth, 
clean-shaven,  with  a  long,  hateful-looking  upper  lip,  closed 
abruptly,  as  though  only  the  "iron  pear"  would  open  it 
again. 

"At  your  service,  genltemen.  What  can  I  do  for 
you?" 

Savary,  instantly  taking  in  his  gaol-bird  appearance,  and 
judging  it  impolitic  to  pretend  to  have  entered  such  a 
hostelry  for  food  or  drink  or  lodging,  stated  his  errand 
briefly. 

"Stabbs?"  the  landlord  muttered,  seeming  to  search  his 
mem  ry,  "Stabbs?  Donnerwetter,  what  sort  of  a  name  is 
that?  Ach,  der  knabe — Friedrich  Stips?  Him  I  know; 
yes-s,  nice  lad;  quiet  as  a  mouse." 

Savary,  as  though  inadvertently,  moved  his  hand  to 
the  hilt  of  "his  sword. 

He  had  stayed  at  the  inn,  the  landlord  continued,  some 
eight  days,  no,  ten — yes,  from  a  Wednesday  to  a  Friday  he 
had  paid  his  bill.  He  had  no  friends  in  Vienna  that  he  knew 
of,  and  he  received  no  letters;  but  he  had  seen  him  writing; 
he  had  also  heard  him  reciting  to  himself  like  a  play-actor. 

"What  then  brought  him  here?  Has  he  a  sweetheart 
in  Nussdorf  or  in  the  neighbourhood?  Did  he  frequent 
women?" 


On  the  Track  of  a  Crime  339 

"A  sweetheart?  Women?  What  am  I  that  I  should 
know  what  company  my  guests  keep  outside  my  house?  I 
am  too  busy,  your  honours. " 

But  interrupting  himself, — "Ja,  ich  komme;  coming! 
coming!"  he  unexpectedly  shouted,  and  without  a  word 
of  apology,  going  to  the  door,  he  answered  along  the  dismal 
passage  questions  that  no  one  had  asked  and  gave  orders 
that  obviously  had  no  meaning  in  this  place,  or  a  meaning 
that  the  two  officers  were  not  intended  to  understand. 

"Why  then  did  he  come  to  Vienna? "  Savary  insisted  in 
bad  German,  but  affecting  the  Viennese  accent.  "Erfurt 
is  a  hundred  and  twenty  miles  away." 

"Does  he  come  from  Erfurt  way?"  was  the  cunning 
rejoinder.  "Your  worships  know  more  of  him  than  I  do. " 

Savary  saw  that  he  had  made  a  false  move. 

"We  must  loosen  this  dog's  tongue,"  he  said  in  French, 
turning  brusquely  from  the  landlord.  "For  if  he  does 
not  speak  we  shall  have  to  arrest  him,  and  the  affair  will  be 
in  every  pot-house  throughout  Austria  to-morrow. " 

He  ordered  wine  and  the  two  officers  sat  down. 


During  the  landlord's  absence  Savary  began  a  stealthy 
examination  of  the  apartment.  A  sign  from  Rapp  stopped 
him.  Through  a  small  square  hole  cut  in  the  wall,  a  pair  of 
jet-black  eyes,  hard  and  bright  as  steel,  were  watching 
every  movement  of  Savary's. 

The  sight  of  those  eyes  gave  Rapp  a  feeling  distinctly 
unpleasant.  On  the  track  of  murder,  they  might  in  this 
lonely  neighbourhood  find  themselves  the  victims  of  mur- 
der. Why  had  they  ever  started  upon  this  useless  enter- 
prise without  an  escort?  Why  had  Savary's  over-caution 
dismissed  the  carriage  and  left  them  unprotected  in  this 
cut-throat's  den?  And  for  the  second  time  that  morning 


34°  Schonbrunn 

he  remembered  the  frequency  with  which  Vandamme's 
stragglers  disappeared  in  this  very  neighbourhood. 

The  landlord  returned  with  a  bottle  of  wine,  ostenta- 
tiously wiping  away  the  dust  and  cobwebs  with  a  dirty 
cloth. 

Savary  invited  him  to  drink. 

"You  are  far  from  rivals, "  he  said  civilly.  "  Has  the  war 
interfered  with  your  trade?" 

"Not  much  to  complain  of,  my  prince.  Times  are 
hard;  but,  for  my  own  part,  I  am  very  contented  and  very 
happy,"  was  the  answer.  And  with  a  kind  of  insolent 
familiarity,  mixed  with  deference,  he  began  to  expatiate 
on  the  war,  on  duty  to  the  fatherland,  the  greatness  of  the 
French  Emperor;  but  also  on  the  greatness  of  Austria,  and 
above  all,  on  the  greatness  of  Carinthia  and  its  capital,  the 
ancient  city  of  Klagenfurth — "The  waterfalls  of  the  Miirr 
are  the  gates  of  Paradise." 

Rapp  was  interested.  To  Savary,  however,  this  garru- 
lity did  not  seem  natural ;  the  patriotism  was  obviously  false. 
It-  was  all  the  talkativeness  of  a  man  who  wished  to  gain 
time.  For  what? 

"Where  do  you  come  from?"  he  asked,  resuming  his 
harsh  and  arrogant  manner. 

"Carinthia,  my  prince.  The  city  of  Klagenfurth,  as  I 
have  just  told  you,  gave  me  birth. "  And  he  began  to  dilate 
on  his  past  life. 

The  inn-keeper,  though  not  born  at  Klagenfurth,  was 
a  Carinthian,  Fedor  Zagnitz  by  name.  His  father  and 
grandfather  belonged  to  the  race  of  mountaineers  who,  on 
the  very  edge  of  the  Carnic  glaciers,  earn  a  savage  livelihood 
as  wood-cutters,  rolling  the  pines  down  the  mountain  side 
into  the  waters  of  the  Drave  far  below.  But  Fedor  and 
his  three  brothers  had  tired  of  this  life,  and  with  a  few 
kreutzers  in  their  pockets  had  made  for  the  plains.  And 
after  various  adventures  confessable  or  unconfessable  in 


On  the  Track  of  a  Crime  341 

Hungary  and  Styria,  all  four  had  ended  as  inn-keepers, 
two  at  Klagenfurth,  one  at  Villach,  the  fourth,  Fedor,  the 
youngest,  here  at  Nussdorf. 

"How  are  we  to  bring  this  drole  to  the  point?"  Savary 
asked  in  a  French  patois  that  he  used  in  speaking  to  his 
police. 

"Let  us  be  frank  with  him,"  Rapp  answered;  and  with- 
out waiting  for  Savary's  assent,  he  stated  their  errand  in  his 
own  way.  They  had  come  expressly  to  enquire  into  the 
character  of  this  Friedrich  Staps.  The  peace  had  been 
signed,  and  a  French  officer  of  great  rank  was  setting  out  at 
once  for  Pommern,  and  desired  a  bright  young  fellow  as  his 
interpreter  and  courier.  Staps  had  seemed  a  likely  youth — 
what  did  the  inn-keeper  know  of  him? 

"And  is  that  all  your  errand? "  the  inn-keeper  ejaculated, 
his  black  eyes  glistening.  "Why  I  thought  you  were 
princes;  yes,  and  I  saw  myself  as  ambassador  to  Klagen- 
furth announcing  the  great  Napoleon's  clemency;  yes,  and 
I  saw  my  two  brothers'  faces  yellow  with  envy  as  they 
eyed  me.  'Thunder,'  they  would  say,  'is  not  Fedor  still 
the  lucky  penny  of  the  family?" 

He  sprang  to  his  feet  with  a  wild  laugh,  and  swinging  to 
the  window,  stood  biting  his  nails  and  staring  through  the 
dirty  panes;  then,  as  though  by  chance,  he  flung  himself 
on  a  stool  immediately  between  his  guests  and  the  door. 

The  criminal  in  him  appeared  uncaged,  yet  Rapp  ob- 
served that  his  eyes,  even  when  standing  by  the  window, 
watched  every  motion  of  Savary's;  he  observed  too  the 
fellow's  powerful  wrists,  the  black  hair  coming  down  the 
arm  to  the  very  knuckles,  suggesting  wild  beast  strength 
and  agility. 

Savary,  who  with  difficulty  had  curbed  his  temper,  got 
on  his  feet;  but  Rapp,  made  cool  by  the  danger,  adhered 
to  the  plan  agreed  upon. 

"What  have  you  to  say?     This  lad  should  begin  his 


342  Schonbrunn 

duties  and  start  on  his  journey  to-night,  or  to-morrow 
at  daybreak — unless,  of  course,  we  discover  from  you  any- 
thing to  his  discredit." 

The  inn-keeper's  insolent  mocking  glance  rested  alter- 
nately on  the  two  Frenchmen;  and  thrusting  his  thumbs 
into  the  armholes  of  his  waistcoat,  he  asked  leisurely, — 
"And  it  is  a  long  journey — this  that  His  Highness  your 
friend  is  going  upon?" 

The  thought  darted  simultaneously  through  Rapp's 
mind  as  well  as  Savary's — "This  ruffian  knows  of  Staps's 
arrest."  There  was  no  mistaking  the  emphasis  that  had 
been  laid  on  the  words  "a  long  journey." 

Savary's  chagrin  was  extreme. 

He  saw  his  whole  scheme  crumble;  he  saw  Staps  re- 
prieved, or  Germany  by  his  death  furnished  with  a  martyr 
immeasurably  more  pathetic  than  Schill  or  Palm;  he  saw 
Fouche's  triumph;  whilst  he  himself  was  further  removed 
that  ever  from  the  Ministry  of  Police. 

"It  is  no  business  of  Fedor  Zagnitz, "  the  landlord  re- 
sumed ;  "but  the  lad  is — sickly,  as  you  might  say,  and  if  your 
great  friend  were  travelling,  say  towards  the  Tyrol " 

"We  should  not  want  a  German,"  Savary  interposed  in 
a  voice  thick  with  the  emotion  against  which  he  was  con- 
tending. 

"No,  of  course  not,  my  prince,"  was  the  startling  retort. 
"You'd  find  plenty  of  Germans — Bavarians,  for  instance, 
on  the  spot — dead,  if  not  living,  eh?  eh?  Plenty  of  Ger- 
mans, ha!  ha!" 

The  outburst  of  savage  hate  astounded  Rapp.  Did  this 
hideous  rage  express  the  true  feeling  of  Germany  for 
France?  Had  he  been  in  error  in  imagining  that  the  young 
Thuringian  had  no  active  accomplices  "save  God"?  Or 
was  the  hate  masked  in  this  brutish  peasant's  breast  an 
example  of  all  Germany? 

But  the  inn-keeper,  as  though  contented  with  this  taunt- 


On  the  Track  of  a  Crime  343 

ing  allusion  to  the  Franco-Bavarian  surrender  in  the  pre- 
ceding summer,  now  changed  his  bearing.  Probably  he 
himself  had  been  working  out  the  situation,  and  tacitly 
gave  up  the  enterprise  against  two  officers  of  distinction 
as  "risky." 

"You  asked  about  women,  did  you  not?"  he  remarked, 
with  a  show  of  friendliness.  "Well,  the  lad  had  a  sweet- 
heart. I  have  so  many  cares,  but  my  memory  comes  back 
to  me  now.  Well,  as  I  was  saying,  I  came  one  day  into  the 
lad's  room.  I  found  him  weeping  over  a  maiden's  picture 
and  sitting  with  his  arms  like  this. " 

The  host  laid  both  his  arms  flat  down  on  the  table  and 
buried  his  face  in  the  sleeve  of  the  right. 

"Ah — who  was  the  girl?  Was  she  of  Vienna?"  Sav- 
ary  asked  indifferently. 

"  I  cannot  tell;  he  never  spoke  of  her,  mon  prince,  never  a 
word." 

But  he  described  the  miniature  and  gave  it  as  his  opinion 
that  the  maiden  was  not  of  Vienna  or  the  neighbourhood. 

"He  had  the  look  of  a  lost  dog, "  he  jerked  out  at  length. 
"Why  should  a  lad  look  like  that  if  his  maiden  were  near?" 

Savary  nodded,  but  put  some  further  questions. 

Not  another  word,  however,  could  he  extort,  either  by 
frankness  or  cunning. 

"Is  there  any  good  in  going  on  with  this?"  Rapp  said  in 
the  patois  already  adopted  by  Savary.  "We  do  not  want  a 
woman  on  our  hands."  And  he  added  in  German,  "Our 
young  friend  will  suit  the  appointment." 

"  I  am  not  satisfied , ' '  Savary  said  slowly.  ' '  The  Tugend- 
bund  has  women  in  its  ranks.  This  drdle  may  know  more 
of  her  than  he  pretends.  Put  a  question  or  two  about  the 
Illuminati — but  carefully." 

Rapp  stifled  the  wish  to  ask  Savary  to  put  such  futile 
questions  himself.  His  honest,  soldierly  intelligence  led 
him  to  see  in  all  such  associations  as  the  Illuminati  and 


344  Schonbrunn 

the  Tugendbund  "mere  moonshine,"  or  at  best  conspir- 
acies to  which  Savary's  or  Fouch^'s  police  for  their  own  ends 
gave  a  factitious  importance. 

"The  Illuminat?"  the  landlord  exclaimed.  "Thunder! 
What's  them?  The  Prince  of  Carinthia  has  often  supped  at 
brother's  tavern  in  Klagenfurth ;  but  he  is  a  Serenity,  not  an 
Illuminat." 

"Enough!  Enough!  Show  me  his  room,"  Savary 
interrupted,  annoyed  by  Rapp's  laugh.  "This  is  no  time 
for  jesting,"  he  muttered  with  a  scowl,  when  Rapp  under 
his  breath  repeated,  "A  Serene  Highness,  but  not  an 
Illuminated  Highness." 

The  host  searched  the  leather  pocket  of  his  pantaloon 
and  took  out  an  iron  ring  garnished  with  keys. 

Behind  him  the  two  officers  climbed  the  rickety  stair, 
covered  like  the  inns  of  the  period,  with  the  filth  of 
months  or  of  years.  On  the  fifth  step  Rapp  turned,  he 
knew  not  why,  and  saw  on  a  wooden  bench  the  outstretched 
figure  of  a  man  in  the  picturesque  dirt  affected  by  the 
Magyars.  Further  back  in  the  gloom  another  figure  in 
the  same  attire  sat  smoking.  A  peat  fire  smouldered  on 
the  hearth,  and  as  he  twirled  his  long  moustaches  he  stared 
into  the  dull  embers. 

Rapp  felt  for  his  pistols,  and,  with  a  sense  of  relief,  saw 
Savary  make  the  same  precautionary  gesture. 

VI 

The  room  into  which  they  were  now  ushered  had  a 
slanting  roof,  and  they  had  to  stoop  in  places  not  to  knock 
their  heads  against  the  ceiling.  Savary  stood  with  the 
host.  Rapp  walked  to  the  window.  It  was  a  dormer  win- 
dow and  looked  across  a  garden  stocked  with  pear  trees, 
plum  trees,  currant  bushes,  and  beds  still  brilliant  with 
marigolds  and  dahlias.  A  deal  table,  green  with  mould, 


On  the  Track  of  a  Crime  345 

stood  under  a  pear  tree;  a  bird-cage  swung  from  a  branch, 
and  in  it  a  grey  parrot  sat  blinking  in  the  sunshine.  Beyond 
the  garden  lay  a  level  expanse  of  fields,  and  beyond  the 
fields  gleamed  the  Danube,  broad  as  a  lake,  flashing  silver 
and  azure  in  the  October  sun. 

"Yes,"  the  host  said,  "the  lad  should  make  a  good  page 
to  a  man  of  condition.  His  habits,  you  see,  were  as  dainty 
as  a  girl's." 

Flinging  back  the  chintz  coverlet,  he  pointed  to  the  sheets 
on  Staps's  bed,  their  dirt  neatly  covered  by  squares  of  white 
paper  sewn  to  the  under  side. 

"Down  with  the  French!  To  hell  with  Napoleon!" 
screamed  a  weird  voice,  apparently  at  Rapp's  elbow,  and 
instantly  the  two  officers  wheeled  round,  pistol  in  hand. 

"  "Tis  only  the  parrot, "  the  landlord  said  with  a  sneering 
laugh.  "  We're  quiet  folks  here. " 

Rapp  and  Savary  stood  listening. 

"God   bless   the   Pope!     God's   curse   on   Bonaparte!" 

An  eldritch  scream  followed,  then  total  silence.  But  in 
a  second  or  two  the  low  jug-jug  of  a  nightingale's  song  rose 
and  terminated  in  another  scream. 

Savary  stepped  to  the  window.  In  a  cage  a  few  feet 
distant  the  parrot  was  sitting  as  if  carved  in  stone,  its  head 
down,  its  right  eye  upturned,  apparently  deeply  satisfied 
with  the  effect  that  it  had  produced. 

"You  have  guests  who  do  not  love  us,  mine  host?"  Rapp 
observed  jestingly.  "Where  did  the  parrot  learn  that 
singsong?" 

"Ach,  not  so  bad?"  was  the  imperturbable  answer. 
"What  is  one  to  do  ?  Men  of  all  sorts  come  here,  from  every 
port  of  the  Danube  between  Donauworth  and  Rustchuk, 
and  that's  a  thousand  miles  and  more." 

Savary  continued  to  stare  out  of  the  window. 

"Who  is  that?"  he  sharply  asked.  "And  to  whom  is  he 
signalling?" 


346  Schonbrunn 

"  Ach,  that?"  the  landlord  said,  coming  up  to  the  window. 
"That  is  poor  Wilhelm.  He  got  his  dose  at  Aspern.  He 
was  bandaging  one  leg  when  whiff !  comes  a  round  shot  and 
rips  the  flesh  from  the  other.  Both  had  to  come  off  in 
hospital.  But  he  got  over  it,  God  knows  how.  Better 
dead,  I  say.  Wilhelm,  however,  does  not  take  that  view, 
and  there  he  is!  He  used  to  sing  as  merry  a  song,  tell  as  good 
a  story  as  any  man  in  Nussdorf,  and  he  would  stand  his 
drink  like  a  Suabian.  Now  he's  queer.  He's  queer.  I 
give  him  a  crust  for  scaring  the  birds,  and  that  shed  to  sleep 
in." 

He  pointed  to  a  hovel  of  dank  and  rotting  planks. 

Near  it,  prone  amongst  the  refuse  and  garbage,  lay  a 
monstrous  figure,  horribly  mutilated,  both  legs  amputated, 
waving  a  huge  flapper  with  both  hands;  now  and  then  a 
groan  of  fatigue  or  pain  escaped  him,  and  with  a  cry  of 
baffled  rage  he  would  lie  panting,  the  flapper  inert.  Crowds 
of  starving  birds  sat  watching  for  these  intervals,  perched 
on  trees,  on  the  wall,  on  the  bushes,  or  fluttering  along  the 
ground. 

"That  too  is  war,"  Rapp  thought,  and  looked  at  what 
to  him  resembled  a  monstrous  caterpillar. 

"He  hates  them  birds,"  the  host  continued  with  hideous 
affability.  "He  used  to  be  kind-hearted  enough;  but  now, 
as  I  said,  he's  a  bit  wrong  here,"  tapping  his  forehead. 
"Seems  to  make  no  difference:  starling,  finch,  tit,  redbreast 
or  thrush,  he  hates  'em  all." 

"He  must  have  had  a  black  spot  in  him  somewhere," 
Rapp  said  suddenly.  "Never  have  I  seen  a  man  wounded 
in  battle  that  did  not  come  out  of  it  a  better  man  than  he 
went  in. " 

"Think  so?"  the  landlord  said,  with  his  insolent  good- 
nature. "Well,  there's  no  saying.  I've  seen  plenty  just 
the  other  way." 

Savary,  who  understood  the  drift  of  Rapp's  remark, 


On  the  Track  of  a  Crime  347 

looked  at  him  in  contemptuous  surprise.  Was  this  the 
place  or  the  time  for  moralizing  on  war  and  peace? 

But  now,  not  less  anxious  to  be  rid  of  his  visitors  than  his 
visitors  to  be  safely  out  of  this  house,  the  landlord  returned 
to  the  subject  of  Staps's  habits. 

"Was  he  religious?  Was  he  an  adherent  of  the  Jesuits  or 
other  society?" 

"Religious?  He  used  to  pray  morning  and  night,  if 
that's  religion.  There!"  he  said,  pointing  to  a  neat  clean 
rug  in  front  of  the  bed.  "  I  have  heard  him  at  it  when  every- 
body else  in  the  house  was  snoring.  I  used  to  pray  myself, 
but  that's  long  ago.  God  bless  you,  where's  the  good  of  it? 
A  man  of  sense  must  pray  to  himself,  aye,  and  answer  his 
own  prayers,  or  they'll  never  be  answered.  What  do  you 
think,  monsieur?"  he  said,  addressing  Rapp.  "You  look 
as  if  you  knew'what's  what.  Why,  when  I  was  young,  I  tried 
all  sorts  of  praying  dodges;  I  prayed  for  this,  I  prayed  for 
that ;  but  never  an  answer,  big  or  little.  At  Klagenfurth  I 
prayed  to  God  to  give  me  two  post-horses.  Did  I  get  'em? 
Instead  of  getting  my  two  post-horses,  three  of  my  cows 
sickened  and  died  in  one  day.  After  that  I  stopped  pray- 
ing, and  tried  other  ways  of  getting  on  in  the  world.  But 
this  made  me  notice  the  lad  at  his  prayers.  'We're  all 
alike  when  we  are  young,'  says  I  to  myself,  'and  doubt- 
less the  lad  is  asking  for  things  just  as  foolish  as  I  asked  at 
his  age.'" 

"Quite  as  foolish!"  was  Savary's  grim  retort. 

He  was  thinking  of  Staps's  asseveration  that  he  had 
implored  the  divine  guidance  as  to  the  murder  of  Napoleon, 
and  to  himself  he  thought,  "To  attack  the  master  of  a 
million  troops  and  the  dictator  of  Europe — certainly  it 
wants  God  Almighty  Himself!" 

"Had  he  any  clothes  to  be  sent  for?"  Rapp  asked,  struck 
by  a  sudden  thought. 

"No  clothes  I  ever  saw  but  those  on  his  back. " 


348  Schonbrunn 

"Is  he  an  educated  lad?  Had  he  books?  His  new 
master  will  like  him  to  read  aloud  to  him." 

It  was  Savary  who  put  this  question. 

"Yes,"  the  landlord  answered  contemptuously,  "he 
read  a  deal  in  books.  I've  got  'em  downstairs.  I  took 
them  out  of  his  room  for  to  keep  them  for  him." 

"Show  them  to  me." 

VII 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later  Rapp  and  Savary  quitted  the 
Goldener  Adler  and  walked  to  the  Zwei  Kronen,  the  chief  inn 
of  Nussdorf.  It  was  close  to  the  wharves  and  overlooked 
the  highroad  from  Brunn. 

Savary  visited  the  custom-house,  but  discovered  nothing. 
He  and  Rapp  crossed  the  river  in  a  boat  without  a  keel, 
which  rolled  excessively  and  increased  Savary's  sulkiness 
and  contempt  for  Austrian  civilization.  His  enquiries  pro- 
duced nothing  fresh. 

It  was  nearly  two  o'clock  before  they  returned 

As  they  re-crossed  the  river  they  heard  in  the  distance 
the  heavy  thud-thud  of  guns.  Savary  looked  at  Rapp 
enquiringly,  but  Rapp  knew  no  more  than  he  did. 

Napoleon  had  not  waited  for  the  signature  of  Francis  II., 
but  as  though  it  were  enough  that  he  had  affixed  his  seal  to 
the  Treaty,  commanded  Vienna,  by  the  thunder  of  a  hun- 
dred cannon,  to  rejoice  at  his  magnanimity.  The  action  also 
dispelled  the  rumours  that  the  story  of  peace  was  a  fake, 
and  allayed  the  dangerous  excitement  rising  in  the  city. 


CHAPTER  XII 

AN   EMPEROR    AND   HIS    SECRETARIES 


TO  those  about  him  an  extraordinary  elation  marked 
Bonaparte's  demeanour  all  that  day,  affecting  them 
exactly  as  the  proximity  of  a  highly  charged  magnetic 
battery  might  have  affected  them — marshals,  generals, 
officers  of  his  suite,  officers  of  the  household,  pages,  aides- 
de-camp,  secretaries,  courtiers. 

Berthier's  face  had  an  angry  congested  look,  such  as  it 
wore  only  in  days  of  battle,  and  he  gave  instructions  or 
orders  to  his  subordinates  in  a  shrill  and  imperative  voice, 
but  with  a  slight  stammer  habitual  to  him  in  moments  of 
great  strain. 

The  Emperor  himself  since  his  return  from  the  morning 
ride  and  the  address  to  his  Guards  had  betrayed  nothing, 
and  appeared  to  feel  nothing  but  an  overwhelming  energy  and 
capacity  for  work.  His  countenance  was  calm ;  in  his  eyes 
burned  a  fixed  concentrated  light.  The  oppression  as  well 
as  the  presentiments  of  the  preceding  days  had  dispersed. 
The  apparitions  of  the  past  night  might,  he  told  himself 
again,  have  been  an  actuality,  or  they  might  have  been 
merely  a  projection  of  his  mind;  the  essential  thing  was 
that  he  had  undergone  the  strangest  ordeal  that  can  affect 
the  heart,  and  in  that  ordeal  he  had  conquered.  The  out- 
burst to  Duroc  had  made  clearer  to  himself  masses  of  in- 

349 


35°  Schonbrunn 

choate  ideas  gathering  in  his  mind  for  the  past  three  months 
or  the  past  three  years.  He  had  placed  the  actions  of  his 
manhood  front  to  front  with  the  dreams  of  his  youth;  the 
contradiction  for  a  moment  had  appalled  his  reason  and 
troubled  his  will;  but  the  contradiction  was  only  appar- 
ent for  he  had  analysed  his  career  stage  by  stage,  and  stage 
by  stage  he  had  justified  that  career. 

"But  all  my  career  is  mystery.  How  at  such  an  hour  as 
this  can  the  superhuman  fail  to  assert  itself?  The  assassin's 
dagger  may  have  prepared  the  way  for  the  phantoms  of  the 
night.  Who  shall  assign  limits  to  the  possible  and  the 
impossible?" 

The  whole  incident,  the  epileptoid  attack  of  the  afternoon, 
the  vigil,  interrupted  only  by  a  couple  of  hours'  sleep  to- 
wards dawn,  had  left  merely  a  painful  hyperassthesia.  The 
most  ordinary  incidents  got  on  his  nerves.  The  evil  odours 
which,  at  that  period,  lurked  for  several  hours  every  morn- 
ing about  the  corridors  of  every  great  house  in  Paris  or 
Vienna  nauseated  him;  but  he  surrounded  himself  with 
a  cloud  of  eau  de  Cologne.  The  scratching  of  a  quill, 
or  a  page  hastily  turned  by  one  of  his  secretaries,  ex- 
asperated him;  but  he  refused  to  give  way  to  these 
sensations. 

"To  work!    To  work!" 

He  repeated  the  phrase  that  day  a  hundred  times.  He 
seemed  to  seek  forgetfulness  and  to  find  pride  in  the  display 
of  his  prodigious  energies,  now  liberated  and  functioning 
joyously.  He  seemed  determined  to  push  on  every  phase 
of  his  gigantic  plans  simultaneously — the  fortification  of 
Passau,  of  Antwerp,  of  Toulon,  of  Linz,  of  Ratisbon;  the 
plans  of  campaign  for  his  armies  in  Portugal  and  in  Spain ; 
the  giving  of  a  central  impulse  to  the  dislocated  actions 
of  Soult,  Mortier,  Victor,  and  St.  Cyr;  the  canal  joining 
the  Seine  to  the  Rhone;  the  canal  joining  the  Meuse  to  the 
Rhine;  public  buildings  in  Paris,  public  buildings  in  Lyons; 


An  Emperor  and  His  Secretaries     351 

the  scheme  to  paralyse  for  ever  Austria's  unlimited  issue  of 
paper  money. 

He  had  begun  immediately  after  the  harangue  to  his 
troops;  he  had  given  elaborate  instructions  first  to  Berthier, 
then  to  Maret,  then  again  to  Berthier  and  later  to  Lauriston. 
He  had  eaten  a  hasty  lunch  and  recommenced.  From  one 
to  three  o'clock  he  had  dictated  to  Men6val  alone;  at  three 
he  had  called  in  the  aid  of  Fain,  now  Meneval's  right-hand 
man;  but,  his  activity  generating  new  force,  he  had  in  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  summoned  as  secretaries  two  other  aides- 
de-camp,  Montesquieu  and  Bertrand,  and  finally  Marbceuf, 
a  good-looking,  sinewy  guardsman  of  two  and  twenty,  son 
of  the  former  commandant  of  Corsica,  the  early  protector 
of  Lastitia  Bonaparte.  He  was  now  dictating  to  five  secre- 
taries at  once. 

At  times  Napoleon  seemed  to  find  a  pleasure  in  display- 
ing to  others  or  in  proving  to  himself  the  range  of  his 
faculties.  To-day,  however,  his  purpose  in  summoning 
five  secretaries  was  practical.  He  wished  to  be  out  of 
Vienna  and  out  of  Germany ;  he  wished  to  feel  his  own  hand 
once  more  on  the  reins  in  Paris  and  throughout  France. 
He  wished  to  dispatch  within  twenty-four  hours  a  mass  of 
business  and  correspondence  that  in  ordinary  circumstances 
would  have  taxed  even  his  powers  of  work  to  dispatch  in 
forty-eight  hours.  He  had  an  additional  incentive — per- 
sonal and  moral.  This  display  of  conscious  strength 
affected  him  somewhat  as  the  visit  to  his  grenadiers  had 
affected  him  that  morning.  It  gave  him  tranquillity — the 
tranquillity  born  of  conscious  and  deliberate  might.  The 
death  of  Pierre  Lestocq  had  moved  him,  and,  yielding  to  an 
impulse,  he  had  permitted  a  brief  word  from  himself  to  be 
addressed  to  the  regiment  by  its  colonel, — "Your  Emperor 
sympathizes  with  you  in  the  loss  of  a  comrade.  His  ardour 
to  return  to  the  standards  made  him  quit  the  hospital  before 
his  wounds  were  healed.  He  was  one  of  the  brave." 


352  Schonbrunn 


ii 

Four  o'clock  had  struck.  In  Napoleon's  cabinet  all  was 
still  vibrating  energy,  invention,  intellect,  and  will.  Ideas 
and  plans  hurtled  in  on  his  imagination  more  rapidly  than  he 
could  find  words  to  express  them  or  find  hands  to  take  them 
down.  Masses  of  them  were  flung  out  in  rapid  and  elliptic 
utterances.  These  were  seized  by  Meneval  and  his  trained 
subordinates,  set  down  fragmentarily,  recast,  approved,  or 
torn  in  shreds  and  redictated.  At  other  moments  Napoleon 
spoke  in  a  low  melancholy  voice,  as  though  obsessed  by 
thoughts  of  a  darker  complexion;  then  again,  gathering 
force,  his  words  became  rapid  and  vibrating;  or  he  would 
suddenly  cease  his  pacing  of  the  floor,  and,  standing  in  total 
silence,  he  would  tug  with  a  spasmodic  motion  at  the  braid 
on  the  right  sleeve  of  his  coat,  then  after  a  second  or  two 
he  would  burst  into  a  torrent  of  violent  rhetoric,  through 
which,  however,  a  definite  meaning  forced  itself.  The  scene 
and  the  hour  suggested  one  other  scene  only,  Condivi's 
vivid  description  of  Michael  Angelo's  studio,  the  Titan 
figure  at  work  in  the  twilight,  the  air  filled  with  hot  dust, 
chips,  and  fragments  of  marble  flying  from  the  chisel  like 
sparks  from  the  iron  on  the  anvil. 

Me"neVal  sat  near  the  fireplace  on  Napoleon's  left.  Along 
side  of  Me"neVal  at  a  table  by  the  south  window  sat  Baron 
Fain.  These  had  in  charge  the  correspondence  with  Paris 
— with  Clarke,  Cambace'res,  Decres,  and  even  with  Fouche". 
To  Marbceuf  were  dictated  the  letters  to  subject  or  allied 
kings,  to  independent  princes  and  other  minor  poten- 
tates of  Germany.  The  two  military  secretaries,  Mon- 
tesquiou  and  Bertrand,  occupied  the  opposite  corner  of 
the  room  on  Napoleon's  right.  They  were  at  this  mo- 
ment taking  down  the  day's  instructions  for  the  gene- 
rals in  Spain — Soult,  Gouvain  St.  Cyr,  Augereau,  and 
Suchet. 


An  Emperor  and  His  Secretaries     353 

Napoleon  in  a  pause  glanced  at  the  clock.  It  was  twenty 
minutes  past  four. 

The  trial  of  the  intended  assassin,  though  not  a  man  in 
that  room  except  himself  was  aware  of  it,  must  now  be 
ended.  Savary  might  arrive  at  any  moment  to  announce 
that  Staps  had  made  his  recantation  or  had  received  his 
death-sentence. 

"And  why  is  Savary  not  already  here?"  he  asked  himself 
impatiently. 

For  a  second  or  two  he  ceased  dictating,  and,  apparently 
idle,  stood  in  gloomy  abstraction  staring  out  on  the  scene  in 
front,  on  the  sinking  October  sun,  the  paths  strewn  with 
dead  leaves,  the  broad  squares  of  grass,  the  white  statues 
niched  in  their  walls  of  solid  greenery.  Beyond  the  Glori- 
ette  a  flock  of  starlings  passed  in  whirring  flight.  They 
were  on  their  way  from  their  feeding-grounds  by  the  Danube 
to  their  homes  in  the  Wienerwald.  He  turned  abruptly 
aside  and  resumed  his  diagonal  pacing  of  the  room,  glancing 
again  at  the  clock. 

In  the  oppressive  silence  Pain's  slightly  asthmatic  breath- 
ing was  unpleasantly  marked.  Me'neval's  pen  continued 
its  steady  scratching.  His  large,  calm,  bald  forehead  was 
held  high  above  the  sheet  on  which  he  was  writing. 

As  though  by  any  means  to  drown  these  irritations, 
Napoleon,  without  indicating  the  secretary  to  whom  the 
order  was  addressed,  exclaimed — "Send  Poniatowski  a 
sabre.  I  am  not  done  with  him  and  his  horsemen.  He  is  a 
Pole  and  will  value  such  a  gift  from  me;  but  strike  out  that 
clause  about  Warsaw.  Poland  has  not  yet  proved  her  fit- 
ness for  self-government." 

Two  secretaries  lifted  their  heads  at  once,  uncertain  to 
whom  the  words  were  spoken ;  but  knowing  by  instinct  that 
Meneval  had  taken  the  minute,  Napoleon  turned  angrily  to 
one  of  the  two  who  had  lifted  their  heads — it  was  Bertrand 
—"Demand  of  Daru  what  has  become  of  the  34,000  pairs 

23 


354  Schonbrunn 

of  slippers  and  the  34,000  pairs  of  winter  boots  which  he 
reported  to  me  four  days  ago — yes,  and  the  45,000  shirts 
and  the  9,000  gaiters  destined  for  Trieste?  Not  a  rag  is  to 
be  left  behind  us.  War  is  war.  And  command  him  at  once 
to  dispatch  50,000  rations  of  biscuit  to  Passau." 

Bertrand  jotted  down  the  places  and  figures  and  began 
at  once  to  outline  the  dispatch. 

The  Emperor  glanced  down  a  draft  handed  to  him  by 
Marbceuf. 

"Good!"  he  said.  "But  why  do  you  say,  'I  write  to 
Your  Serene  Highness  to  inform  you — '?  Why  say  'I 
write'?  Does  His  Serene  Highness  imagine  that  you  are 
shouting  down  an  ear-trumpet?  Put  simply,  'This  is  to 
inform  Your  Highness. ' ' 

And  turning  to  Bertrand,  who  had  not  yet  finished  the 
order  to  the  governor  of  Vienna,  Daru — he  gave  the  unex- 
pected command: 

"Send  for  the  Prince  de  Neuchatel.  When  he  enters,  let 
Montesquieu  and  yourself  correct  or  verify  these  instruc- 
tions by  my  interview  with  him.  Remain ! "  he  said  abruptly 
to  Fain,  who  had  risen  to  let  Montesquiou  pass.  "  Demand 
of  Clarke"  (his  Minister  of  War  at  Paris)  "why  I  have  not 
yet  received  the  detailed  report  on  my  order  for  120,000 
muskets  on  the  model  of  1777,  and  of  my  second  order  for 
180,000  muskets  No.  I  Republican." 

"Les  droles!"  he  said  to  himself,  taking  a  pinch  of  snuff. 
"Do  they  sleep  in  their  chairs  in  Paris?  To  whom  have 
you  now  come?" 

"To  the  King  of  Wurttemberg,"  Marbceuf  answered. 

Napoleon  frowned.  "Ah,  Jerome!  Let  the  coquin 
wait."  Jerome's  debts  and  the  criminal  extravagance  of 
the  court  at  Cassel  had  compelled  him  to  modify  a  secret 
clause  in  the  Treaty. 

At  this  moment  both  the  folding-doors  were  flung  wide. 

"The  Prince  de  Neuchatel." 


An  Emperor  and  His  Secretaries     355 

Two  pages  of  the  household,  in  gold  and  scarlet,  appeared, 
and,  between  them,  through  the  vertical  oblong  of  dark- 
ness, Berthier  in  full  uniform  entered,  scarcely  less  glittering 
and  dazzling  than  the  imperial  chamberlains  and  pages. 

His  carriage  and  six  fine  horses  waited  below,  and  he  had 
been  stopped  at  the  very  door. 

Napoleon  considered  him.  A  malicious  smile  broke  over 
his  face. 

"We  cannot  part  with  you,  mon  prince.  Where  is  your 
baton?"  he  went  on,  taking  him  affectionately  by  the  ear. 

"What  a  comedy!"  Montesquiou  murmured  to  Bertrand 
as  he  took  his  seat  beside  him  at  a  temporary  desk  made 
out  of  a  low  box  in  acacia-wood  laid  on  the  top  of  a 
gilt  table.  Montesquiou's  audacity  threw  Bertrand  into  a 
panic;  but  to  suppress  Montesquiou  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. He  had  all  the  levity  and  all  the  dare-devil  courage  of 
his  caste.  He  was  chivalrous,  never  refused  to  do  a  kind- 
ness that  was  in  his  power;  and  if  he  were  in  debt  every- 
where, he  was  also,  whenever  he  had  money,  the  most 
open-handed  of  men.  To  him  certainly  Napoleon's  bitter 
sarcasm  on  the  noblesse  could  not  be  extended — "I  showed 
them  the  path  to  glory,  but  they  would  not  tread  it.  I 
opened  my  drawing-room  doors  and  they  rushed  through 
them  in  crowds." 

ra 

"The  mine  under  the  Molker  bastion  has  not  exploded. 
Why  ? ' '  the  Emperor  said,  addressing  Berthier,  as  though  that 
information,  just  semaphored  by  Daru,  were  the  cause  of  his 
interrupting  his  Chief  of  the  Staff's  return  to  Vienna.  Buc 
without  waiting  for  a  reply,  he  addressed  to  him  a  series  of 
rapid  questions  upon  the  provisioning  of  the  Eleventh 
Corps,  Marmont's,  which,  three  days  later,  was  to  replace 
the  Imperial  Guard  in  the  capital. 


356  Schonbrunn 

"Tell  me — the  3ist  foot,  the  I4th  chasseurs,  and  the 
1 9th — in  what  parts  of  Tuscany  are  they  quartered — and 
the  6th  hussars  and  the  4th  Polish  lancers?  I  must  give 
Eugene  at  least  twelve  regiments  of  cavalry.  I  cannot 
have  Lefebvre's  blunder  repeated.  And  a  flying  column 
must  be  sent  into  Istria.  The  English  on  hearing  of  the 
peace  will  at  once  attempt  a  descent. " 

Berthier  gave  the  necessary  answers.  It  was  an  amazing 
feat  of  memory;  but  Berthier  was  not  the  "heaven-born 
chief  of  the  staff"  for  nothing. 

"Good — good!"  Napoleon  said,  still  in  the  affectionate 
voice  which  all  that  day  he  had  employed  in  talking  to  him. 
"And  how  many  rounds  of  ammunition  are  there  at  Gratz? " 

"Eight  hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand,  but  other 
two  hundred  thousand  are  on  the  way. " 

"Eight  hundred  thousand?  Good  God!  There  ought 
to  be  two  millions.  See  to  it  at  once.  And  when  can 
Macdonald  occupy  the  town?" 

"In  five  days." 

But  this  time  Berthier's  answer  was  too  unhesitating. 
Napoleon's  suspicious  ears  caught  the  accent  of  a  premedi- 
tated or  prearranged  reply. 

"  In  five  days?  Why  not  in  three?  Have  I  forgiven  the 
past,  recalled  him  from  exile,  afforded  him  an  unparalleled 
opportunity  of  glory  at  Wagram  and  made  him  a  marshal, 
to  be  repaid  with  ingratitude  or  sloth?  Five  days ! " 

A  storm  seemed  imminent;  but  Napoleon  turned  with  a 
gesture  of  impatience  to  Bertrand. 

"Write!  The  two  divisions  of  Marshal  Macdonald  shall 
be  at  Gratz  in  three  days." 

The  order,  as  Berthier  very  well  knew,  could  not  possibly 
be  executed.  It  affected  him  disturbingly;  for  it  showed 
that  not  only  in  external  and  negligible  affairs  but  in  press- 
ing and  organic  things  Napoleon  had  divorced  his  mind 
from  reality.  Nevertheless,  not  a  muscle  of  his  face  moved. 


An  Emperor  and  His  Secretaries     357 

The  unfortunate  trick  of  folding  his  arms  across  his  chest 
alone  betrayed  his  discomposure. 

Napoleon  saw  it ;  a  slight  nervous  cough,  habitual  to  him 
in  moments  of  excitement,  seized  him.  He  spat  angrily  on 
the  ground. 

"And  Drouet?"  he  exclaimed,  addressing  Berthier. 
"And  the  three  Bavarian  divisions?  They  must  have  their 
vengeance  on  the  Tyrolese ;  they  must  themselves  punish  the 
rebels;  they  must  themselves  teach  these  swineherds  that 
no  one  can  with  impunity  revolt  against  my  ally!  I  am 
ready  to  hear  their  grievances;  but  they  must  state  them 
upon  their  knees.  Let  me  hear  not  a  syllable  about  their 
independence,  or  the  continuance  of  Austria's  rule!  I  will 
wage  eternal  war  rather." 

Again  the  nervous  cough,  caused  by  an  irritation  in  the 
bronchial  tubes,  aggravated  by  his  speech  in  the  Danube 
mists  that  morning,  seized  Napoleon. 

Berthier  was  about  to  take  his  leave,  but  the  Emperor, 
instantly  changing  his  tone,  drew  him  aside  and  said  in  a 
low  voice: 

"You  know  my  plans.  Has  Barraguay  d'Hilliers  an 
organizing  head?  Can  you  make  use  of  him?  I  will 
retain  the  nominal  command  till  I  reach  Passau;  but  you 
will  leave  the  Alleegasse  at  once,  and  take  up  your  residence 
at  Schonbrunn.  Here  your  power  is  absolute.  But  re- 
member :  there  is  no  peace  so  long  as  we  are  in  an  enemy's 
country.  Relax  nothing.  I  desire  each  corps  to  enter,  pass 
through,  and  leave  Vienna  every  man  with  his  finger  on  the 
trigger.  The  conditions  are " 

He  stated  the  details  of  the  evacuation.  By  November 
ist,  Massena  with  40,000  and  Davout  with  60,000  were  to 
evacuate  Moravia,  the  latter  concentrating  upon  Vienna, 
the  former  upon  Krems.  Oudinot  with  the  Second  Corps, 
24,000  strong,  was  to  be  out  of  Vienna  by  the  same  date  and 
concentrated  upon  Polten  and  Molk.  Then  followed  a 


358  Schonbrunn 

second  series  of  instructions,  giving  the  position  of  each 
corps  up  to  the  I5th  December,  Berthier  now  and  then  inter- 
polating a  variant  or  a  suggestion,  every  word,  including 
Berthier's  corrections,  being  meanwhile  verified  or  corrected 
by  Bertrand  and  Montesquiou. 

With  a  tug  at  his  ear  and  a  friendly  tap  on  the  shoulder 
Berthier  was  dismissed. 

IV 

In  Napoleon's  presence,  the  individuality  of  other  men 
was  effaced.  During  that  interview  six  men  were  taking 
down  his  commands  or  ideas  or  words  as  rapidly  as  he  could 
utter  them,  but  Meneval  seemed  to  speak  and  act  like  Ber- 
thier, Berthier  like  Fain,  Fain  like  Marbceuf,  and  Marbceuf 
like  Bertrand.  Montesquiou  alone  retained  a  certain  per- 
sonality, the  corrupt  cynicism  of  his  mind,  the  negligent 
disdain  of  his  manners,  making  this  Mephistopheles  of  the 
ante-chamber,  even  in  his  youth,  one  of  the  most  outstand- 
ing representatives  of  the  noblesse  in  Napoleon's  entourage. 

Me*neVal,  meanwhile,  had  been  engaged  on  a  dispatch 
to  the  Czar.  Napoleon  had  aided  him,  now  by  a  word,  now 
by  a  phrase,  jerked  in  amid  his  dialogue  with  Berthier.  He 
now  took  the  draft  from  M^neval's  hands,  and,  with  a  grim- 
ace, began  to  correct. 

"What  is  this?     It  is  incredible." 

He  tore  the  draft  into  shreds  and  trampled  on  them. 

Meneval  waited,  suave  and  imperturbable.  Less  down- 
right than  Rapp  or  Duroc,  less  sincere  au  fond,  he  yet 
retained  in  Napoleon's  neighbourhood  a  measure  of  critical 
power  which  he  had  constantly  to  disguise. 

"Write!" 

The  Emperor  sketched  the  heads  of  the  draft  in  the 
following  saccade*  phrases, — 

"To  the  Czar  write, — Who  has  been  poisoning  the  mind 


An  Emperor  and  His  Secretaries     359 

of  Your  Majesty?  I  will  never  protect  a  rebel.  What! 
Tyrol  in  flames,  insurrections  in  Spain,  Prussia  arming — 
does  Alexander  think  me  mad  ?  Does  he  imagine  that  I  will 
imitate  the  accursed  House  of  Lorraine?  Let  Francis  II. 
send  gold  chains  to  ci-devant  emigres  or  to  insurgent  peas- 
ants! If  a  single  Polish  rebel  seeks  refuge  in  my  State  I 
will  have  him  instantly  shot  or  sent  in  chains  to  Moscow. 
The  only  hope  of  Warsaw  is  in  the  favour  of  its  sovereign, 
his  Imperial  Majesty  the  Czar.  Let  it  look  to  him  for 
redress.  Repeat  that  I  have  given  Austria  most  lenient 
terms.  She  cedes  Salzburg  and  some  trifles  beyond  the 
Inn.  I  have  not  taken  an  inch  of  Bavaria,  and  in  Italy 
only  the  region  indispensable  for  my  communications  with 
Dalmatia." 

This,  Me"neval  thought  ironically,  Alexander  L,  who  has 
never  forgotten  Suvarow's  campaign  and  is  still  sore  on 
account  of  Italy,  is  to  accept  as  an  accurate  description  of 
Austria's  surrender  of  the  Innviertel,  Salzburg,  the  best 
portion  of  Friuli,  Carniola,  Trieste,  and  all  Dalmatia  and 
Croatia  south  of  the  Save — 3,500,000  subjects  and  an  in- 
demnity of  £3,400,000 !  And  will  Alexander  accept  the  half 
million  wretched  peasants  of  Tarnopol  as  the  equivalent  of 
the  1,500,000  added  to  Warsaw? 

But  Napoleon  tricked  his  partners  in  war  as  at  cards. 
Shortsightedness  was  part  of  his  "greatness." 

"Say  also,"  the  Emperor  began  again,  stamping  his  foot, 
"that  I  have  been  thus  lenient  out  of  consideration  for  his 
Imperial  Majesty  the  Czar.  Add  that  Madrid  is  safe,  Well- 
ington in  full  retreat,  and  that  America  is  about  to  declare 
war  on  England." 

He  turned  to  Bertrand,  Eugene's  admirer  and  flatterer. 

"To  the  Viceroy,  Prince  Eugene,"  he  said,  "write — 'It 
is  fitting  that  the  victor  of  Raab  shall  be  the  subjugator  of 
the  Tyrol,  and  secure  for  himself  the  laurels  that  fell  from 
the  brow  of  Lefebvre. ' " 


360  Schonbrunn 

He  stopped  abruptly.     "Quoi  done?    What  is  it  now?" 

Fain,  at  the  table  on  his  left,  had  raised  his  head.  The 
letters  to  the  secondary  kings  and  princes  announcing  the 
peace  were  completed  and  awaited  the  Emperor's  signature. 

Without  sitting  down  Napoleon  took  a  quill,  shook  off 
the  ink,  then  glanced  keenly  at  the  headings  and  at  the 
"Monsieur  mon  frere" — to  Frederick  Augustus,  the  big, 
broad-faced,  somnolent  King  of  Saxony;  to  Maximilian 
Joseph,  King  of  Bavaria,  changing  without  rhyme  or 
reason  the  first  line  of  Fain's  draft  into  "Je  m'empresse 
d'annoncer"  and  handing  it  to  the  secretary  to  re- write, 
whilst  he  proceeded  to  sign  the  remaining  letters — to  Dai- 
berg,  prince  primate  of  the  Confederation  of  the  Rhine,  to 
the  Grand-Duke  of  Hesse-Darmstadt,  to  the  Prince  Borg- 
hese,  husband  of  Pauline,  now  at  Turin,  to  the  Grand-Duke 
of  Baden — making  the  singular  flourish  that  now  passed 
for  his  name,  though  only  an  eye  accustomed  to  decipher 
Shabestari  handwriting  could  transliterate  more  than  thf 
"N." 

He  returned  then  to  Bertrand's  letter  to  Eugene. 

It  had  long  been  Napoleon's  whim  to  make  a  soldier  of  his 
stepson,  and  he  had  decided  to  train  him  in  the  art  of  waf 
himself.  Eugene,  though  an  amiable  individual,  was  as 
unfit  for  the  part  assigned  to  him  by  his  great  step-father  as 
were  Joseph  or  Louis;  but  he  was  as  incapable  of  treason 
as  of  ambition,  and  more  conscious  than  the  brothers 
of  Napoleon's  greatness,  so  conscious,  indeed,  that  three 
months  hence  he,  the  son  of  Josephine,  was  to  describe 
Napoleon's  resolution  to  divorce  her  as  "an  honour  to  my 
mother. " 

"Write,"  he  said  to  Bertrand,  "write  to  the  Viceroy — I 
charge  you  especially,  first,  with  the  submission  of  the  Tyrol ; 
secondly,  with  the  duty  of  organizing  the  territories  ceded 
to  me  by  this  treaty,  henceforth  to  be  described  by  the  name 
of  the  Provinces  of  Illyria.  You  shall  yourself  remain 


An  Emperor  and  His  Secretaries     361 

in  Vienna  until  the  exchange  of  ratifications.  You  shall 
review  at  once  the  Eleventh  Corps,  which  is  now  under  your 
command,  and  furnish  it  from  the  magazines  at  Vienna 
with  everything  that  it  requires.  The  sick  and  wounded  of 
the  Army  of  Italy  and  of  the  Eleventh  Corps  shall  be 
removed  to  Gratz  and  to  Loben. " 

Then  followed  instructions  to  Generals  Rusca  and  Drouet 
in  regard  to  the  concentration  upon  Villach  and  upon 
Salzburg,  Balsano  and  Brixen,  terminating  with  a  sketch  of 
the  plan  of  campaign. 

These  instructions,  dictated  alternately  to  Bertfand 
and  Montesquiou,  the  former  taking  the  Tyrol,  the  latter 
the  newly  acquired  territories,  amounted,  even  in  their 
condensed  form,  to  2,500  words,  packed  with  geographical 
details,  directing  the  movements  and  numbers,  the  length 
of  the  marches,  the  positions  of  brigades,  regiments,  divi- 
sions, extending  over  a  vast  region  whose  government, 
fortresses,  its  finance  and  laws,  its  river,  mountains,  cities, 
and  plains,  were  not  less  clear  to  Napoleon's  mind,  un- 
aided that  afternoon  by  any  map,  than  the  inlaid  pattern  of 
the  costly  table  at  which  Bertrand  sat  writing. 


The  torrent  of  geographical  names  and  military  details 
ceased;  and,  in  the  silence  broken  only  by  the  scratching  of 
the  quills,  observing  that  MeneVal's  pen  was  idle,  and  that, 
with  his  bald  head  and  wide  perspiring  face  uplifted,  he 
was  waiting  for  a  command,  Napoleon,  interpreting  the 
look  before  Me'ne'val  had  spoken  a  word,  exclaimed: 

"Ah,  that  absurd  business!" 

He  sat  down  and,  putting  his  fingers  together,  laughed 
shrilly,  jocosely,  cunningly. 

"What  blockheads  your  men  of  letters  are!  Indeed  it  is 
one  thing  to  lead  for  a  single  week  an  army  corps  of  thirty 


362  Schonbrunn 

thousand  men  and  another  to  translate  like  Delille  an  epic 
in  twelve  books,  or  write  a  history  in  thirty  volumes  like 
Lacretelle!  This  proposal  for  a  monument  to  me — how 
fatuous  in  itself !  No  man  should  permit  a  monument  to  be 
erected  to  himself  in  his  lifetime.  At  most  he  may  allow 
his  own  generation  to  choose  the  site;  the  generation  after 
him  may  raise  the  pedestal ;  it  is  the  third  generation  only 
that  should  dare  erect  the  statue.  Yet  what  can  I  do?  I 
have  been  drawn  headlong  by  the  follies  of  this  age.  Good 
God !  These  men  of  letters !  If  the  secret  of  stupidity  were 
lost  to  the  world  I  could  find  enough  in  the  Institute  to  re- 
people  a  planet!" 

He  broke  into  another  strident  laugh. 

"They  intend  nothing  but  honour  to  your  Majesty," 
MeneVal  said,  deprecatingly.  "This  monument  has  long 
been  in  their  minds.  It  was  intended  as  a  surprise  upon 
your  return  to  Paris.  This  unfortunate  dispute  about  the 
names  has  frustrated  that  intention." 

"Bah,"  Napoleon  said,  flinging  himself  back,  "phrases! 
phrases!" 

Me'ne'val  was  alluding  to  a  letter  received  from  Paris 
three  days  previously,  but  left  for  consideration  till  this 
afternoon,  requesting  Napoleon  to  decide  whether  he  would 
be  styled  "Augustus"  upon  both  piers  of  the  triumphal 
arch,  or  "Augustus"  upon  the  one  and  "Germanicus" 
upon  the  other,  or,  again,  "Augustus"  on  both  piers  and 
"Germanicus"  on  the  entablature  above  the  key-stone,  so 
that,  beginning  from  the  top,  it  would  read,  "Napoleon, 
Germanicus,  Augustus,  Augustus." 

"But  this  earth  is  a  children's  nursery,"  Napoleon  went 
on  in  reflective  tones,  "and  grown  men  like  myself  must 
play  with  the  toys  in  use  there  or  leave  it — or  leave  it! 
But  these  messieurs  of  the  Institute !  Daily  they  move  me 
to  anger  or  to  laughter.  A  year  ago  I  had  to  reprehend  one 
for  comparing  me  to  God,  another  for  asserting  that  the 


An  Emperor  and  His  Secretaries     363 

universe  was  hushed  in  my  presence.  The  universe!  If  I 
frown,  will  a  fly  cease  its  buzzing,  or  a  cricket  its  song? 
These  phrase-makers!  To  what  depths  of  imbecility  or 
vileness  will  not  the  human  mind  descend!" 

The  cloud  dissipated  instantly,  and  he  resumed: 

"What  do  they  intend  by  this  request?  Fontanes — 
that  pompous  school-usher,  fit  only  to  be  a  laureate  in  prose 
to  the  Princess  Bacciocchi — does  he  think  to  overwhelm  me 
with  his  empty  words?  Augustus?  Germanicus?  What 
are  these  names — ces  noms-la — to  inscribe  on  my  triumphal 
arch?  Augustus  won  an  indifferent  sea-fight  at  Actium, 
but  for  the  rest  of  his  life  his  sword  was  sheathed.  When 
Varus  lost  the  six  legions,  did  Augustus  hasten  from  Rome 
to  avenge  the  insult?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  He  wandered  up 
and  down  his  palace  wringing  his  hands  and  wailing — 
'Varus,  give  me  back  my  legions;  give  me  back  my  legions; 
Varus!'  Is  that  the  part  for  a  hero  or  even  for  a  brave 
man  to  play  ?  And  is  that  a  name  to  inscribe  on  my  monu- 
ment? As  for  Germanicus,  he  owes  his  fame  to  his  widow, 
his  funeral  urn,  and  the  venomous  eulogies  of  Tacitus." 

He  looked  at  Me'ne'val  as  though  expecting  or  tempting 
him  to  argue.  Meneval  knew  better. 

"Sire,"  he  said  with  extreme  deference,  "does  not  M. 
Fontanes  mean  merely  to  express  by  Germanicus,  'the 
conqueror  of  Germany,'  not  the  individual  Roman?" 

"Very  well.  But  why  not  say  so  in  good  French?  Why 
use  Latin?  The  Romans  when  they  raised  statues  to 
Cassar  did  not  inscribe  his  victories  in  Greek !  France  is  a 
greater  empire  than  Rome,  and  possesses  a  greater  lan- 
guage. Why  should  it  not  use  its  own  tongue?  I  desire 
French  to  become  the  language  of  a  reconstituted  Europe,  a 
re-united  Europe.  I  am  resolved  that  Europe  shall  be  one 
and  indivisible;  that  in  the  future  a  man  shall  say  'I  am 
a  citizen  of  Europe,'  as  now  he  says  'of  France,'  'of 
Saxony,'  'of  Austria.'  Language  is  the  very  principle  of 


364  Schonbrunn 

division.  Language  sows  division  amongst  men;  it  fosters 
that  effete  absurdity  'the  nation'  and  national  spirit. 
What  barbarous  alphabets  and  literatures  are  the  German 
and  the  Russian !  They  are  fit  only  for  a  Museum  of  An- 
tiquities. But  to  the  religion  and  culture,  to  the  arts  and 
civilization  of  the  new  era  I  intend  to  give  one  language — 
French.  Therefore  to  inscribe  my  name  in  Latin  is  at  once 
to  insult  the  majesty  of  the  French  tongue  and  to  thwart 
my  ultimate  designs.  Is  it  not  so?  Is  it  not  so?  No,  but 
answer,  Meneval,  answer!" 

Meneval  had  no  answer. 

Napoleon  went  on: 

"But  the  pedant  is  the  pedant  still;  the  same  to-day, 
yesterday,  and  for  ever.  He  is  perpetually  on  the  hunt 
for  comparisons.  He  cannot  see  a  thing  until  he  has  found 
something  like  it  in  a  book.  History  is  the  instructor 
of  mankind;  it  is  the  only  philosophy;  but  History  never 
repeats  itself.  Because  I  fought  the  English  in  Spain  in 
1808,  why  must  I  be  perpetually  reminded  that  Louis 
XIV. 's  generals  fought  in  Spain  in  1708?  What  resem- 
blance is  there  between  my  wars  and  his  ?  My  wars  are  wars 
for  a  new  Europe,  his  were  wars  for  an  old  dynasty.  I 
came  to  Spain  to  put  an  end  to  feudal  and  to  priestly  ty- 
ranny; Louis  XIV.,  to  fasten  on  the  neck  of  Spain  the  yoke 
of  Jesuitism  and  feudal  oppression.  Pedantry !  Pedantry ! 
Why  must  Canova  make  me  stand  naked  to  posterity's 
gaze  as  if  I  were  a  Greek  boxer?  I  would  destroy  every 
copy  of  that  statue  if  I  could.  France  and  I  should  be 
examples  to  the  future,  not  imitators  of  the  past.  Write 
as  I  bid  you — no  Latin,  no  Germanicus,  no  Augustus;  but 
simply  my  name — and  in  French." 

MeneVal  jotted  down  a  hurried  note. 

Napoleon  turned  sharply  to  Bertrand, — "Demand  once 
more  of  Daru  whether  cloth  breeches  have  been  supplied  to 
the  Second  Corps  and  to  the  two  regiments  which  a  week 


An  Emperor  and  His  Secretaries     365 

ago  sent  in  their  petition.  This  is  not  weather  for  cotton. 
Does  he  confound  the  Danube  with  the  Bay  of  Naples? 
And  request  Admiral  Decres  to  execute  at  once  my  orders 
of  the  1 2th.  Do  you  understand?"  he  said  to  Marbceuf. 
"To  do  them  without  any  more  of  his  'buts'  or  'fors'  or 
'ife.'" 

A  smile  flickered  in  Montesquieu's  eyes.  He  disliked 
the  ruddy,  loud-voiced  sailor,  whose  prolixity  during  the 
recent  Walcheren  episode  had  caused  frequent  explosions 
in  the  cabinet  at  Schonbrunn. 

Excitement  and  anger,  some  secret  impatience,  had 
replaced  the  silky,  humorous,  bantering  tone  in  Which  the 
Emperor  had  spoken  to  Me"neval. 

A  storm  against  the  Swiss  followed  the  angry  tirade 
against  Dam's  remissness  and  Decres'  prolixity.  Napo- 
leon was  becoming  more  and  more  irritated  by  Savary's 
continued  absence. 

"The  Helvetian  Republic  grumbles  because  it  has  to 
supply  me  with  a  miserable  18,000  men,  yet  England  has 
two  Swiss  regiments  in  her  pay.  Write  to  these  deputies 
that  there  shall  be  no  abatement,  not  a  single  conscript,  no, 
not  a  cartridge!  And  what  does  Clarke  mean?"  he  said  to 
the  same  secretary,  Fain,  for  by  this  time  Fain  had  acquired 
something  of  Meneval's  dexterity  in  seizing  the  Emperor's 
phrases  on  their  flight. 

He  thrust  a  volume  of  the  Code  before  Fain's  eyes. 

"I  see  there,"  he  said,  pointing  with  a  trembling,  short 
but  finely  manicured  finger  to  a  particular  clause,  heavily 
pencilled  on  the  margin,  "I  see  there  a  law  which  ordains 
that  any  man  who  receives  a  deserter  or  a  flag  of  truce  after 
sunset  shall  be  shot.  Good  God!  Are  we  still  under  the 
Terror?  Is  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  still  sitting? 
Command  Clarke  to  prepare  at  once  'A  Guide  for  Military 
Tribunals'  permitting  the  abrogation  of  this  infamous 
law." 


366  Schonbrunn 

There  was  a  lull  of  a  few  seconds. 

Napoleon  glanced  at  the  time-piece.  Nine  minutes  past 
five.  Why  had  Savary  not  arrived  ?  Had  there  been  some 
hitch?  Some  fresh  discovery? 

He  was  about  to  dictate  a  sentence  to  Meneval,  but  a 
subconscious  process  of  his  mind  having  worked  to  its  issue 
he  stopped  Fain,  and  dictated  a  rapid  order  in  addition  to 
the  three  with  which  Fain  was  already  struggling. 

"Write  also  to  Aldini  at  Milan  to  have  a  brochure  written 
— but  not  more  than  fifty  pages  long.  I  do  not  wish  a  treat- 
ise that  will  not  be  finished  before  Judgment  Day,  but  a 
short,  pungent  article,  seasoned  with  Italian  anecdotes, 
proving  that  the  Papacy  is  and  always  has  been  the  enemy 
of  Italian  unity.  Request  him  to  take  as  his  motto  Machia- 
velli's  maxim,  '  The  Papacy  is  the  stone  thrust  into  the  side 
of  Italy  to  keep  the  wound  open.'  Make  him  paint  Julius 
II.  and  the  League  of  Cambray  hurling  France  and  Austria 
against  Venice." 

Me'ne'val  had  now  completed  the  letter  to  the  Institute. 

Napoleon  glanced  along  the  pages,  and,  without  a  com- 
ment, stooped  forward  abruptly  and  scratched  his  signature. 
The  vicious  flourish  at  the  end  betrayed  something  of  the 
writer's  mood. 

Me'ne'val  was  preparing  to  continue  the  interrupted 
letter  to  Francis  II.  As  yet  only  the  concluding  sentence 
satisfied  Napoleon  entirely, — "Voici  done  la  quatrieme 
guerre  entre  Votre  Majeste"  et  moi  termine'e. " 

But  at  that  moment  the  double  door  was  again  flung 
open.  A  page  appeared. 

"The  due  de  Rovigo  begs  an  audience  of  your  Majesty." 

"Where  is  he?" 

"In  the  audience  chamber,  your  Majesty." 

"Bring  him  here." 

He  passed  swiftly  into  the  adjoining  cabinet,  which,  during 
Napoleon's  residence  at  Schonbrunn,  corresponded  to  the 


An  Emperor  and  His  Secretaries     367 

Bureau  <T Archives  at  Trianon  or  St.  Cloud.     Two  gardes 
de  portefeuilles  were  on  duty  as  pages. 

VI 

"Eh  bien?"  Napoleon  said  impatiently,  stopping  right  in 
front  of  Savary  and  scrutinizing  his  sallow  countenance,  the 
long  drooping  nose  accentuated  by  the  stooping  position. 
"One  sees  nothing  of  you,  monsieur  le  due.  You  have  been 
at  work  all  day?  What  have  you  discovered?" 

"Nothing,  Sire." 

' '  Nothing  ?     Not  in  Vienna  ?     Not  at  Nussdorf  ? ' ' 

Savary  explained  the  delay,  beginning  with  the  report  of 
his  agent  early  in  the  morning,  ending  with  his  visit  to  the 
inn  and  the  villages  on  the  other  side  of  the  river. 

Napoleon  did  not  listen. 

"Have  my  instructions  been  carried  out?  Has  the 
prisoner  fasted?" 

The  conqueror's  anxiety  astounded  Savary.  During 
the  day,  amid  all  the  variety  of  his  occupations,  the  singular 
idea  had  fixed  itself  in  Bonaparte's  mind  that  if  he  could 
not  break  this  boy's  will  he  could  not  break  the  will  of  Ger- 
many. He  might  make  treaties  with  every  cabinet  from 
the  Rhine  to  the  Oder,  and  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Tyrol;  but 
unless  Germany  itself  were  conquered  his  battles  might  as 
well  never  have  been  fought. 

"Has  Duroc  conversed  with  him  as  I  commanded?" 

"We  did  everything,  your  Majesty,  everything,"  and  he 
added,  for  he  was  fatigued  and  exasperated  by  the  long 
day's  task, — "The  due  de  Friuli  will  himself  narrate  to  you. 
I  outrode  him." 

Napoleon  said  nothing. 

Savary,  disturbed  by  this  silence,  went  on  in  a  hurried 
apologetic  manner: 

"General  Hulin  informed  the  prisoner  that  your  Majesty 


368  Schonbrunn 

aimed  at  the  regeneration  of  Europe  and  of  Germany;  he 
reminded  him  that  the  greatest  of  the  German  princes, 
nobles,  and  poets  were  on  your  side;  that  M.  Goethe  and 
M.  Wieland  had  accepted  the  Legion  of  Honour  from  your 
hands " 

"Well,  well,"  Napoleon  said  impatiently.  "What  did 
he  answer?" 

"He  answered  that  if  this  were  true  they  were  traitors; 
that  if  Schiller  had  lived  he  would  never  have  acted  thus, 
and  in  a  formidable  voice  he  repeated,  'They  are  traitors. 
Their  genius  only  makes  their  treason  the  more  atrocious. 
If  I  stood  alone  in  all  Germany  I  would  still  affirm  this. 
They  are  traitors.  I  have  failed  in  my  attempt;  now  I 
have  no  wish  but  to  die. " 

At  these  words,  Napoleon  walked  abruptly  to  a  window 
and  with  folded  arms  stood  looking  out  across  the  gardens. 
This  room,  in  a  projecting  facade  of  the  left  wing,  looked 
nearly  due  west.  The  sun  was  setting.  The  blackening 
woods  of  the  Wienerwald  stretched  beneath  it  like  a  bar  of 
ebony. 

"How  small  that  red  and  sinking  orb  appears!  How 
small:  and  so  are  the  mightiest  affairs  of  men." 

Bonaparte  from  his  twenty-fifth  year  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  signing  the  death-warrants  of  men ;  he  had  signed 
many  political  executions  and  in  war  military  executions  by 
the  score.  Violence  had  succeeded  with  him.  After  the 
extermination  of  the  Jacobins,  Marengo ;  after  the  murder  of 
d'Enghien,  the  sun  of  Austerlitz;  and  after  the  murder  of 
Palm,  the  victories  of  Jena,  Eylau,  and  Friedland. 

"But  now?" 

Again,  spectre-like,  he  saw  the  two  figures  of  his  dream 
standing  hand  in  hand  before  him,  there  in  the  falling  twi- 
light. He  stared  at  them  fixedly,  and  sensibly  before  his 
very  gaze  they  dissolved. 

But  the  other?     The  reality? 


An  Emperor  and  His  Secretaries     369 

He  saw  that  other  still,  but  in  a  changing  shape — the 
slender  figure  outstretched  on  a  plank  or  on  the  straw  of  a 
dungeon  watching,  haggard-eyed,  this  same  light  sinking 
into  night,  this  sun  going  down  that  for  him  would  not  rise 
again,  or  rise  only  to  set  and  set  eternally. 

Savary's  voice  put  a  term  to  his  thoughts. 

"General  Lanier  is  charged  with  the  execution  of  the 
sentence." 

"What  sentence?" 

He  did  not  wait  for  the  answer,  but  walking  up  and  down 
stopped  again  by  the  window. 

"That  need  not  be  done  to-night.     To-morrow  or " 

"The  sooner  he  disappears,  your  Majesty,"  Savary 
said  with  sudden  energy,  "the  sooner  the  danger  is  over. 
We  should  not  give  the  Tugendbund  a  martyr.  If  he  dis- 
appears to-night  or  to-morrow  not  a  trace  of  his  crime  or  his 
history  will  pass  the  arsenal  walls. 

"His  relations  still  live,"  Napoleon  said  brusquely. 
"  He  has  a  father. " 

"His  father  need  know  nothing,  your  Majesty.  I  have 
provided  for  that." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

Savary  unfolded  his  story  of  the  nobleman  in  search 
of  a  courier.  He  would  himself  write  to  the  pastor  at 
Naumburg,  informing  him  that  his  son  had  accepted  this 
position;  and  from  time  to  time  he  would  remit,  as  from 
Staps  himself,  modest  sums  of  money  such  as  thrifty  young 
men  in  Germany,  during  their  Wanderjahre,  sent  to  their 
homes. 

"You  mean  that  his  father  is  to  be  made  to  believe  that 
his  son  is  still  alive,  and  well  and  prospering?" 

"His  father,  his  relations,  and  all  other  Germans,  that 
is,  the  few  who  know  of  his  existence." 

Savary  went  into  his  plan  more  fully,  Napoleon  now 
and  then  criticizing  it,  and  rectifying  a  fact  or  a  detail.  Then 
24 


370  Schonbrunn 

with  his  habitual  grimace — a  twitch  of  the  left  corner  of 
the  mouth  which  gave  it  the  expression  of  a  sneer,  he  said 
sententiously : 

"It  is  boldly  planned." 

He  himself  found  a  kind  of  pleasure  in  such  duplicity. 
It  appealed  to  the  Corsican  in  him. 

"Where  is  the  dossier?  It  ought  not  to  have  been  left 
at  the  arsenal." 

"The  dossier  is  here,  Sire.  I  have  not  forgotten  the 
blunder  made  by  the  Convention." 

Napoleon's  surprised  but  satisfied  look  was  his  reward. 

Savary  alluded  to  the  unpleasant  effect  upon  public 
opinion  produced  by  the  dossier  of  the  trial  of  Marie 
Antoinette,  recently  exhumed  from  the  archives  of  the 
Palais  de  Justice. 

"It  is  enough,"  Napoleon  said  again.  "To-morrow 
morning — before  reveille.  Let  me  know  how  he  dies." 

With  this  command  the  interview  ended. 

The  room  was  now  dark.  Napoleon  stood  for  some 
seconds  alone  in  the  greyness.  He  then  returned  to 
his  secretaries.  The  letter  to  the  Emperor  Francis  was 
not  yet  dictated.  It  must  be  dispatched  to-night.  / 


CHAPTER  XIII 

AN    IDYLL   AT  MODLING 


AT  ten  o'clock  on  the  Saturday  morning  of  the  Treaty 
the  curtains  of  the  Countess  Esterthal's  bedroom  were 
still  closed. 

Her  sleep  had  been  short,  but  it  had  been  deep.  She  had 
drunk  her  morning  cup  of  coffee,  and  now  lay  amongst  her 
pillows  with  her  arms  behind  her  head,  lazily  watching  her 
maid. 

The  latter  in  her  black  dress  and  white  apron  with  a  red 
border,  with  a  cap  like  a  crimson  butterfly  perched  amid 
her  stubborn  black-brown  hair,  was  moving  about  the  room 
with  short,  quick,  excited  steps. 

"Had  padrino  come  down?"  Amalie  asked. 

"His  Excellency  went  out  early;  he  returned  an  hour 
ago." 

"Any  visitors?" 

"Oh,  yes;  a  thousand.  They  are  already  with  His 
Excellency  in  the  library — Count  Alvintsky,  Field-Marshal 
Beaulieu,  Marshal  Siegenthal " 

"That  is  enough,  Tita." 

Amalie  knit  her  brows  and  turning  on  her  side  lay  looking 
at  the  intense  light  between  the  curtains.  She  loved  those 
brooding  morning  silences  when  the  sunlight  mirrored  itself 
on  the  furniture  of  the  room,  on  polished  wood  or  porcelain 

37i 


372  Schonbrunn 

or  gold  or  silver.  In  those  long  and  leisured  hours  she  had 
time  to  remember  and  time  to  reflect,  time  to  read  or  to 
meditate.  During  the  campaign  she  had  read  morning  by 
morning  some  pages  of  Rentzdorf's  books.  For  those 
books  had  gradually  become  to  her  everything  that  at 
Monza  her  missal  and  her  breviary  had  been. 

At  a  sudden  brouhaha  of  voices  she  started. 

A  door  had  opened,  and  from  this  room  on  the  ground- 
floor  came  the  noise  of  anger  or  excitement. 

"Oh,"  Tita  exclaimed,  coming  to  a  stop  in  opening  a 
drawer,  "  I  do  hope  they  will  not  upset  the  peace.  Marshal 
Beaulieu  looked  so  ferocious." 

"Do  not  be  alarmed,  Tita.  He  has  been  looking  'fero- 
cious '  these  seventy  years.  They  are  simply  fighting  the 
old  battles  over  again." 

The  door  closed  and  the  sound  ceased. 

Tita  resumed  her  task,  and  her  mistress,  with  a  pure 
sense  of  joy  born  of  the  release  from  the  anxieties  of  the 
past  months,  sprang  out  of  bed  and,  her  arms  high  above 
her  head,  stood  for  a  second  rejoicing  in  her  vital  strength 
and  youth  and  radiant  health,  by  a  few  hours'  sleep  restored. 

"O  earth,  0  mother  earth!"  she  hummed  to  herself. 
"Hast  thou  wheeled  again  into  the  flooding,  wonder-work- 
ing light  o'  the  sun?" 

The  words  occurred  in  Rentzdorf's  Caius  Marius,  but 
they  always  made  her  laugh.  The  passage  in  which  they 
occurred  had  moved  her  deeply;  but  now  Rentzdorf  had 
forbidden  her  to  admire  them  or  repeat  them  or  re- 
member them  at  all.  Quoting  them  alone,  she  recaptured 
at  once  her  early  emotion  and  a  sense  of  joyous,  teasing 
independence. 

"And  now  I  will  dress." 

She  usually  had  Tita  out  of  the  room  during  this  rite; 
but  this  morning  the  very  spirit  of  mischief  possessed  her. 
Tita,  crouching  in  front  of  the  lowest  drawer  of  an  antique 


An  Idyll  at  Modling  373 

cabinet  in  white  and  gold,  had  at  this  moment  her  back 
turned  to  her.  The  crimson  butterfly  in  her  hair,  Amalie 
calculated,  looked  settled  for  at  least  twenty  seconds. 

For  two  seconds  she  deliberated;  the  next,  her  night- 
dress had  slipped  to  the  floor,  falling  in  snowy  folds  about 
her  feet,  and  she  stood  erect  in  dazzling  nakedness,  survey- 
ing with  her  lover's  eyes  the  image  of  her  own  gleaming 
body  as  it  sprang  up,  like  alabaster  upon  sapphire,  against 
the  azure  background  of  the  hangings  of  her  bed  reflected 
in  the  oval  mirror  in  front.  So  she  stood.  But  at  a  pre- 
monitory quiver  in  the  crimson  butterfly  she  leaned  quickly 
sideways,  and  after  a  struggle  about  her  shoulders  she 
stood  veiled  to  the  knees  in  the  white  films  of  her  chemise. 

When  Tita  rose  from  her  stooping  position  she  saw  her 
mistress,  enveloped  in  a  quilted  dressing-gown,  seated 
quietly  in  front  of  the  ormolu  table  and  its  oval  mirror. 

"Tita." 

"Yes,  madame?" 

But  Amalie  had  forgotten  why  she  had  called  her  and  said 
abstractedly : 

"You  have  not  your  headache  this  morning?" 

"Oh,  no,  madame;  I  could  not  have  a  headache  to-day." 

"I  will  have  my  hair  done  at  once." 

It  was  a  caress  of  a  sort  to  feel  her  maid's  cool  fine  fingers 
linger  in  her  hair  or  dart  hither  and  thither  amongst  its 
golden  warmth,  now  spreading  it  over  her  shoulders  in 
innumerable  shining  ripples,  now  twisting  it  into  coils, 
now  into  delicate  braids.  Once,  with  a  swift  ambiguous 
glance,  Tita  looked  boldly  into  her  mistress's  blue  eyes 
reflected  in  the  mirror,  and  by  a  kind  of  feminine  contagion 
forced  her  to  laugh,  without  knowing  why.  .  .  . 

ii 

Amalie  had  dismissed  Tita,  and  was  lying  on  a  sofa  by  the 
window. 


374  Schonbrunn 

The  bell  of  St.  Stephen's  was  tolling  for  a  special  service. 
There  was  a  sacred  stillness  in  the  sky,  in  the  faint  haze 
still  clinging  about  the  trees,  in  the  russet  glow  of  the  late 
flowering  plants.  A  liquid  amber  glory  pulsated  in  the 
upper  air.  It  quivered  through  the  still  leaves  of  the  syca- 
mores, and  in  mellow  golden  radiance  came  to  rest  on  the 
dark  soft  green  of  the  moss  below. 

She  had  an  hour  thus  to  be  alone. 

At  such  intervals  life  was  prayer;  earth  itself  a  temple  of 
which  the  priest  was  God. 

Taking  up  the  second  part  of  the  Prometheus  she  passed 
rapidly  to  the  scene  which  contains  the  great  paeon  and 
death  song  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Worlds,  reading  it  slowly, 
taking  in  each  cadence,  each  syllable. 

"Behold,  the  coursers  of  the  evening,  how  they  gather 
above  the  sunset,  squadron  behind  squadron  arrayed  in  their 
glory!  What  splendour!  What  brightness!  Their  forms 
outnumber  the  forest  in  multitude,  and  their  hues  the 
mine — crimson  and  emerald,  amethyst  and  gold.  But  the 
sun  goeth  down,  and  their  glory  is  withered.  So  shall  I 
sink — so  shall  I,  the  everlasting  God,  sink  and  go  down:  and 
the  cloud-pavilions,  my  worlds,  shall  be  dispersed  and 
vanish  away.  But  I  know  whither  I  go,  voyaging  beyond 
Being  to  my  timeless  rest." 

The  strange,  the  frenzying  joy — to  be  God !  To  hear  in 
her  own  cry  or  her  lover's,  God's  cry;  to  stay  to  listen,  and 
with  her  soul  hovering  on  her  lips  in  the  very  flight  towards 
ecstasy,  to  feel  in  her  pulsing,  eddying  blood  God's  blood; 
in  her  frightful  grief  God's  grief,  His  torment,  His  anguish! 
This  Rentzdorf  had  given  her. 

in 

An  hour  later,  when  Amalie  descended  the  broad,  sun- 
steeped  staircase,  she  found  "Old  Austria"  in  force  in  the 
hall  and  in  the  breakfast-room. 


An  Idyll  at  Modling  375 

A  little  pot-bellied  man  in  a  general's  uniform,  with  one  of 
the  most  rakish  old  faces  in  Vienna,  at  once  made  for  her 
direction.  His  right  eye  squinting  outwards  gave  to  the 
whole  physiognomy  something  alert  and  humorous. 

"Ah,  M.  de  Beaulieu  ..."  the  Countess  said  amicably. 

It  was  indeed  Beaulieu,  famous  as  the  first  Austrian 
commander  that  Napoleon  had  thoroughly  smashed.  He 
had  arrived  the  night  before  from  Linz,  where  amid  flower 
gardens  and  picture  galleries  he  had  been  living  in  a  not 
inglorious  retirement. 

"Your  Illustriousness  in  Vienna?"  he  answered,  his  false 
teeth  ghastly  new  in  his  battered,  yellow,  shrivelled-up 
countenance.  "Then  Austria  has  lost  no  provinces." 

Beaulieu,  in  speaking  to  a  beautiful  woman,  still  delighted 
in  the  inane  gallantries  fashionable  in  the  days  of  Maria 
Theresa,  and  if  rumours  were  true,  he  was  a  dog  that  had 
had  his  day  amongst  the  women  of  that  Court. 

"What  mischief  is  afoot  now?"  he  demanded,  fixing  her 
with  his  squint  eye.  "Eh-h?" 

"Why,  what  mischief? "  Amalie  said  demurely.  " I  have 
been  eating  my  breakfast." 

"Gr-r-r  .  .  .  Breakfast!  Where  there  is  beauty  there 
is  devilry,  even  at  breakfast-time.  You  were  at  the  Burg 
last  night?  A  pretty  thing  that  for  Vienna !  Gr-r-r  .  .  ." 

Amalie  moved  away  towards  a  group  of  functionaries 
and  retired  officers  standing  round  Count  Esterthal.  They 
had  assembled  that  morning,  these  veterans,  ostensibly  to 
consider  Vienna  and  the  Empire  and  the  new  situation ;  but 
after  a  quarter  of  an  hour  they  were  bored  by  patriotism; 
for  their  patriotism  was  the  exposition  of  his  own  plans  by 
each  in  turn — his  plans  for  Austria's  future,  his  theories  of 
her  past  defeats,  his  counsels  to  the  men  who  could  save  her, 
his  censure  of  the  men  who  had  caused  her  humiliation. 
And  with  unaffected  interest  they  began  to  discuss  not  the 
nation's  but  their  own  ailments,  and  their  own  cures  for  old 


376  Schonbrunn 

age,  gout,  ague,  corpulency,  deafness,  the  dropsy.  Then 
first  one,  then  another,  had  begun  to  denounce  the  French — 
their  robberies,  their  insolence,  their  exactions,  the  obstacles 
imposed  by  the  occupation  upon  personal  comforts  or 
personal  amusements — hunting,  driving,  riding,  shooting; 
one  narrating  a  fabulous  story  of  the  price  he  had  paid  for  a 
dozen  of  wine;  another,  his  desperate  straits  to  make  up  a 
pack  of  boar-hounds. 

Johann,  till  then  unobserved  in  the  background,  now 
came  up  to  Amalie. 

"Why  is  Rentzdorf  not  here?"  - 

"  I  will  tell  you;  but  come  here, "  she  said  quickly. 

At  a  remark  of  Alvintsky's,  Johann's  dark  face  had 
flushed.  A  disagreeable  smile  like  a  sneer  was  on  his 
lips. 

"Come  this  way, "  she  insisted  in  a  whisper,  adding  in  a 
louder  voice,  "Tell  me — how  do  you  like  the  Treaty?" 

Two  other  visitors,  with  marks  of  great  deference,  had 
approached  Alvintsky,  Beaulieu,  and  Count  Esterthal. 

"More  spectres  from  the  Seven  Years'  War,"  Johann 
said,  eyeing  the  new-comers.  "Great  God,  where  do  they 
all  come  from  ?  In  Austria  no  man  under  seventy  should  be 
a  colonel,  no  man  a  general  under  eighty,  and  as  for  our 
field-marshals,  they  should  at  least  be  in  their  ninety- 
fifth  year.  Youth  has  ruined  us!  Why,  Beaulieu  is  only 
eighty-four,  and  Alvintsky  not  yet  seventy-five!  Austria! 
Thy  name  is  Antiquity — old  institutions,  old  customs, 
old  families,  old  forts,  old  guns,  old  everything — and  above 
all,  old  generals!" 

"We  can  beat  him  yet,"  Beaulieu  was  screaming  in  a 
shrill  and  joyous  voice.  "It  is  merely  the  ups  and  downs 
of  war. " 

"Oh  God,  those  unconquerable  heroes!"  Count  Johann 
continued.  "Those  blustering,  blundering,  bluttering 
fools!  Old  Wurmser  died  of  a  broken  heart  and  Bruns- 


An  Idyll  at  Modling  377 

wick  of  his  wounds;  but  Beaulieu  and  Alvintsky!  These 
many-wintered  crows  will  roost  on  all  our  sepulchres." 

Through  the  open  window  came  the  sound  of  male  voices 
chanting  in  unison,  "In  exitu  Egypt.  ..." 

It  was  a  procession  of  grey  friars  on  their  way  to  the 
inner  city. 

"Your  sister  is  still  at  Modling?"  Amalie  enquired. 

" Wilhelmina?  Yes, "  he  said,  "unless  she  considers  that 
this  crisis  in  Austria's  history  demands  her  presence  in  the 
capital!  Why  do  you  ask?" 

Wilhelmina  was  a  kind  of  female  Count  Markowitz,  but 
good-natured. 

Amalie's  plan  was  that  Toe,  Johann,  Rentzdorf ,  and  her- 
self should  ride  to  Modling,  pass  the  afternoon  there,  and 
ride  back  again  in  the  twilight  in  time  for  the  Opera. 

He  listened  moodily. 

There  behind  Amalie,  there  in  imagination  stood  his 
impetuous,  wilful,  entirely  beloved  mistress  in  palpitating 
life,  ready  to  throw  her  arms  about  him.  "Austria  is  lost," 
she  seemed  to  say,  "the  precious  dynasty  discredited,  but 
canst  thou  know  misery  beholding  me?" 

"You  will  come?" 

"Rentzdorf  has  an  engagement  \vith  Ludwig  Beethoven 
this  evening,"  he  said  demurringly. 

"Rentzdorf  has  an  engagement  with  Amalie  von  Esterthal 
this  morning  and  this  afternoon  and  all  afternoons ;  and  you, 
you  similarly  with  Princess  Durrenstein.  It  is  decided?  I 
will  answer  for  Heinrich,"  she  went  on,  smiling  at  his 
obstinacy.  "Go  and  get  Toe." 

"I  will  go  and  get  passports." 

"Is  that  necessary?" 

"It  is  safer." 

She  went  to  the  stables;  visited  Rothgar,  her  favourite 
mount,  saved  from  the  requisition  by  Andreossy's  kindness. 
It  was  a  fine  bay  which  Toe  had  described  as  so  much 


378  Schonbrunn 

"a  gentleman"  that  even  if  he  stumbled  or  jibbed  it 
did  not  hurt  the  rider,  for  whatever  Rothgar  did  had  its 
harmoniousness . 


IV 

In  man's  life  the  first  joy  is  often  scarcely  experienced 
when  disquiet  begins,  born  of  that  brooding  joy  itself. 

Shortly  after  noon  Amalie  retired  to  her  room  in  an  access 
of  troubled  and  despondent  irritability.  Her  riding-habit 
lay  ready,  but  she  was  in  no  mood  to  put  it  on. 

In  the  hall  a  messenger  had  handed  her  a  letter  from  her 
husband.  Though  not  at  the  Rittersaal,  he  had  passed 
the  night  in  Vienna.  He  was  now  with  the  Archduke  Maxi- 
milian at  the  Prince  de  Ligne's,  not  five  miles  away. 

"All  will  begin  again,"  she  said  to  herself  bitterly,  "all 
has  begun  again.  That  too  the  Peace  has  brought  me." 

Her  thoughts  went  to  Rentzdorf  and  the  scene  in  the 
supper-room  last  night.  Would  that  quarrel — if  quarrel 
it  were — affect  these  recommencements?  Would  he  toler- 
ate her  continuing  to  share  this  house  with  Ferdinand? 
And  she  herself — ought  she  to  permit  him  to  tolerate  it? 

"For  that,"  she  reasoned  bitterly,  "is  the  true  question. 
Ought  I  to,  or  can  I,  go  on  witnessing  or  imaging  his  misery 
night  by  night?"  Her  imagination  winged  by  the  quarrel 
set  the  answer  before  her  in  a  vivid  and  terrible  enough 
shape.  She  beheld  her  lover  stretched  in  his  tent  on  the 
night  before  a  battle  and  saw  the  steady,  fierce  melan- 
choly in  his  eyes,  the  curve  of  the  lips;  and  on  his  set 
features  she  saw  descend  the  same  grey  despair  as  had 
overshadowed  them  last  night. 

Neither  Rentzdorf  nor  herself  was  made  for  this  life  of 
covenanted  deceit.  Yet  how  was  it  to  be  remedied? 
The  falsehood  in  her  position  in  Vienna  as  Ferdinand  von 
Esterthal's  wife  could  only  be  exchanged  for  the  falsehood 


An  Idyll  at  Modling  379 

of  her  position  as  Rentzdorf's  mistress  in  other  towns  or 
other  cities. 

She  began  to  walk  up  and  down  her  room,  pondering  the 
situation — her  friends,  her  brothers'  rank  in  the  army; 
padrino,  his  age,  his  dependence  on  her  presence  for  happi- 
ness; the  burden  which  she  would  impose  upon  her  lover; 
his  genius,  her  own  desperate  incapacity,  her  weakness,  his 
strength. 

That  very  morning,  in  society's  lies,  insults,  calumnies, 
and  inneundoes  against  Napoleon,  she  had  heard  its  insults 
upon  herself  and  upon  her  lover  if  she  once  took  the  step 
to  which  every  craving  and  every  behest  of  reason  urged 
her — flight  together.  And  would  it  matter  so  much?  she 
asked  f everously .  Was  she  a  woman  of  that  sort  ?  Was  she 
so  bound  to  society?  Uprooted  from  Vienna,  would  she 
indeed  wither  away? 

In  that  society  itself  Toe's  betrothal  to  Johann,  left 
uncertain  yesterday  afternoon,  but,  as  a  swift  note  had 
informed  her,  finally  ratified  at  Toe's  house  less  than  an 
hour  ago,  would  render  things  all  the  more  difficult,  impel- 
ling her  to  flight.  For  the  question  started  up  in  Amalie's 
mind:  How  would  marriage  affect  Toe?  Would  she  fall 
back  into  the  dominion  of  the  Markowitz  code?  Johann's 
own  character,  Rentzdorf  had  once  said  laughingly,  was 
tempered  by  the  irregularity  of  his  relations  with  the 
Princess  Durrenstein.  But  now?  Amalie  saw  herself  and 
Rentzdorf  excluded  from  Toe's  circle. 

"Praying  for  me!" 

Her  laughter  was  not  pleasant. 

The  reaction  was  swift. 

Distinctly  she  saw  that  the  desire  which  to-day  and  all 
her  days  ravaged  her  blood  was  not  the  desire  to  be  with 
Rentzdorf,  sharing  with  him  the  same  rooms,  unseparated 
day  and  night ;  distinctly  too  she  saw  that  the  fear  which  had 
harrowed  her  was  not  the  fear  of  the  insecurity  or  anomaly 


380  Schonbrunn 

of  her  position;  nor  was  it  the  recoil  from  the  outstretched 
finger — "See!  It  is  the  Countess  Esterthal  who  ran  away 
with  a  poet!"  Her  fear  was  an  unconquerable  misgiving, 
derived  from  the  tenacity  with  which  she  had  adopted  the 
maxim  that  the  deepest,  most  sacred  passion  is  not  proof 
against  the  restraint,  the  bondage,  the  hourly,  daily  jarrings 
of  sick  nerves,  weariness,  all  the  incidents  of  common 
life. 

Yes,  she  reasoned  dully — each  day,  out  of  a  world  of  men 
and  women,  to  choose  and  be  chosen — that  in  secret  was 
her  ideal. 

"If  this  is  so,  what  then  is  love?" 

A  modern  instance  occurred  to  her.  The  English  am- 
bassador, Lord  Paget,  had  in  January  last  married  the 
English  lady  in  whose  divorce  he  was  the  co-respondent. 

"And  already  he  leaves  her  for  Adelheid  Ortski !  And  I ? 
Of  what  is  it  that  I  am  afraid?  At  bottom  it  is  not  of 
society's  condemnation.  It  is  the  fear  of  this  passion 
ending,  in  him  or  in  me." 

But  Amalie  had  scarcely  formulated  this  theorem  when 
by  the  flare  as  of  lightnings  she  saw  that  the  wrong  in  her 
own  and  Rentzdorf's  passion,  the  wrong  in  her  own  and 
Rentzdorfs  life,  and  in  all  life  and  in  all  passion,  was  a 
wrong  which  never  could  have  been  right;  that  their  passion 
was  dyed  in  Being's  essence;  that,  like  everything  which  is 
beautiful  or  heroic,  it  was  beautiful  or  heroic  not  because 
of  its  Tightness  or  its  wrongness,  but  because  it  was  most 
deeply  dyed  in  that  strife  and  that  anguish  which  is  Being 
itself  and  God. 

"And  yet,  if  it  could  be  like  this,  or  like  last  night  for 
ever!  Then  to  sink  in  one  grave  and  in  eternity  know  but 
this  again!  But  for  us  that  can  never  be,  never!" 

Her  hand  pressed  her  brow  bewilderedly,  then  back  she 
sank  shuddering,  biting  her  handkerchief  to  suffocate  her 
cries. 


An  Idyll  at  Modling  381 


But  at  another  onset  of  violent  weeping  she  rose  impa- 
tiently, bathing  her  eyes. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  me?  Something  eternally  lost 
weeps  in  me." 

She  moistened  her  lips  with  water;  her  hand  shook,  spill- 
ing the  water  as  she  set  down  the  glass. 

Her  mind  in  those  minutes  of  conflict  and  insight  had 
made  the  circuit  of  existence. 

"It  is  the  woman  that  I  am  plotting  against,  the  woman 
that  I  ought  to  be;  the  God  that  is,  against  the  God  that 
shall  be." 

A  bird's  song,  liquidly  clear,  free  from  all  sorrow,  a  music 
into  which  sorrow  not  only  had  never  come,  but  never  could 
come,  rose  in  the  sycamore  outside  her  window.  Breathless, 
she  stood  listening.  Tears  dimmed  her  sight.  Why  had 
not  nature  rested  there?  The  God  who  is  nature,  why  had 
He  gone  on  to  create  in  man,  and  in  woman  above  all,  these 
intricate  avenues  to  misery — the  brain,  the  heart,  the 
womb? 

"  Nature's  innocence  ..." 

She  was  no  longer  the  dupe  of  that  shibboleth.  There 
was  no  innocence  in  nature. 

"Adultery?" 

This  was  not  adultery.  She  knew  adulterous  women 
in  Vienna;  Madame  Z.;  Countess  X.,  changing  her  lovers 
every  five  weeks  or  every  five  days.  Her  husband's  liaison 
with  Adelheid  Ortski  had  been  adultery. 

"But  this?" 

She  could  front  the  God  of  any  of  the  religions,  unabashed. 

' '  But  my  own  God  ?  The  God  of  my  religion — the  world- 
soul?"  she  flashed  out  suddenly. 

She  pondered. 

"That  art  thou,  the  world-soul."     She  saw  rather  than 


382  Schonbrunn 

heard  her  own  bloodless  lips,  carved  in  bronze,  whisper 
those  words;  but  still  she  pondered. 

"The  ethics  of  all  the  religions  are  ultimately  the  same," 
Rentzdorf  had  asserted  in  one  of  his  Dialogues ;  and  in  The 
Runes  of  Odin  he  had  in  his  own  person  obviously  spoken 
the  mandate:  "Look  thou  upon  thine  enemy's  face  until 
thou  seest  shine  through  it  the  face  of  God."  Again,  in 
Caius  Marius  she  had  once  marked  and  studied  the  words 
of  a  Roman  tribune  to  Sulla,  "Accursed  is  he  who  builds 
his  own  joy  upon  another's  suffering." 

Her  mind  swept  to  affirmation. 

"Nature's  innocence?  The  bird's  pure  notes?  If  this 
in  me  is  wrong,  God  in  me  is  the  wrong-doer;  if  this  in  me 
is  sin,  it  is  God  in  me  that  sins." 

And  a  resolve,  born  out  of  all  yesterday's  and  this  morn- 
ing's soul-conflict,  rose  in  her  mind  like  a  distant  light. 
In  Naples  long  ago  she  had  broken  from  the  routine  of  her 
soul-life.  Why  then  should  she  hesitate  to  break  from  the 
routine  of  her  society-life?  Once  all  her  thinking  had  been 
thought  out  for  her  in  Galilee  or  inside  a  priest's  skull ;  yet 
she  had  shattered  that  deadly  charm.  Now  all  her  actions 
were  shaped  for  her  in  Vienna  inside  her  acquaintances' 
skulls.  Why  did  she  hesitate? 

"  Heinrich,  0  my  beloved,  forgive  me !  Why  do  I  doubt  ? 
Tear  out  the  world's  heart !  Bleed  to  death  of  the  wound 
or  live  for  ever  restored !  This,  that  the  world  dreads,  this 
is  God." 

But  the  future?     Her  equivocal  position? 

She  turned  in  a  paroxysm  against  herself,  indignant. 
Could  she  imagine  herself  ever  wearying  of  this — this  unend- 
ing ecstasy  of  soul  and  sense;  touch,  taste,  smell,  hearing, 
sight,  transfigured  all  to  soul-states,  God-possessed  unceas- 
ingly— could  she  imagine  herself  ever  wearying  of  this  in  a 
crowd  or  in  a  desert,  in  obloquy  or  on  a  throne,  of  his  voice, 
his  passionate  adoration  of  herself,  his  words,  his  visionary 


An  Idyll  at  Modling  383 

thought,  his  laughter,  his  gloom  ?  And  in  an  exaltation  she 
sped  on — his  vices,  if  they  were  vices,  were  diviner  than  the 
tabled  virtues  of  others ;  his  treachery  better  than  another's 
faith. 

"Together  in  the  black  rain — but  together." 

But  in  him — if  this  love  should  die?  Oh,  she  reflected, 
let  him  have  his  uttermost  will  of  her !  In  that  tempest  it 
were  heaven's  heaven  to  founder!  She  would  tell  him  this 
on  the  ride;  she  would  take  back  her  refusals  of  last  night. 
Why  was  she  here  except  through  him  to  know  suffering? 

"Give  me  the  worst  now,  that  I  may  better  know  the 
best.  This  afternoon  ..." 

Her  life  rose  before  her;  her  life  chequered  with  error  on 
error — errors  of  judgment,  errors  of  the  heart,  errors  of  will, 
of  speech,  of  resolve. 

"Woven  of  blunders,"  she  muttered,  "but  this  is  not  a 
blunder.  This  day  I  shall  have  done  the  one  supremely 
right  thing. " 

She  called  her  maid. 

"Vitet     Vitel    Quick,  quick!" 

VI 

The  environs  of  Vienna,  notably  to  the  south  and  south- 
west, are  the  most  beautiful  possessed  by  any  capital  in 
Europe.  The  soil  is  sandy  and  broken,  streams  are  fre- 
quent, valleys  alternate  with  sudden  bold  headlands  crested 
by  a  modern  mansion  or  the  ruins  of  a  feudal  tower,  and  over 
wide  areas  the  ground  is  strewn  with  boulders  of  rock  or 
green  with  sudden  patches  of  gorse  and  bracken.  Pines 
cluster  into  gloom  on  the  lower  slopes,  or  clamber  one  behind 
the  other  up  some  narrow  ledge  rising  sheer  above  the  bed 
of  a  vanished  torrent,  like  Druid  priests  in  their  dark-robed 
processions  of  pre-Roman  times. 

To  the  east  the  horizon  line  is  level  with  the  Danube; 


384  Schonbrunn 

northward  through  the  evening  haze  the  city's  roofs,  spires, 
domes,  gables,  glimmer  unsubstantial  as  a  resting  cloud. 
Vienna's  oriental  aspect  is  then  very  marked.  Rentzdorf 
often  came  here  in  summer,  and  as  he  lay  and  looked  north- 
ward to  the  city  would  see,  under  that  smoke  canopy,  now  a 
rearguard  left  by  the  crusades,  now  a  camp  flung  far  forward 
in  the  counter-attack  by  Islam  against  the  retreating 
Cross. 

Near  Modling,  late  that  Saturday  afternoon,  he  and  the 
Countess  Amalie  were  sitting  amongst  the  bracken  on  the 
edge  of  a  pine-coppice  overlooking  the  valley. 

"You  have  to  meet  Uvarow  at  nine?" 

"Yes";  he  answered,  "at  nine,  to  take  him  to  Bee- 
thoven. " 

In  the  silence  a  pine-cone  dropped  and  she  watched  the 
silvery  intense  light  between  the  stems  on  the  further  edge 
of  the  wood. 

"Have  you  seen  much  of  him  recently? "  Rentzdorf  asked. 

"Beethoven?  No.  He  has  moved  his  lodging  again, 
Count  Markowitz  tells  me." 

And  she  thought  of  Wilhelmina  Markowitz's  sharp  criti- 
cism of  the  composer  that  afternoon  for  having  taken  no 
active  part  whatever  in  the  war.  "How  are  we  to  listen 
when  next  he  conducts  his  Eroica, "  Wilhelmina  had  con- 
cluded, "when  we  reflect  that  with  heroes  in  battle  not 
four  miles  away,  he  stayed  quiet  at  home?" 

Guessing  her  thoughts,  Rentzdorf  looked  at  Amalie. 
She  was  wearing  a  felt  hat  with  a  feather  which  swept  in 
a  long  curve  and  fell  below  the  brim,  and  as,  leaning  on 
her  elbow,  she  lay  on  the  turf,  fragrant  with  pine-needles, 
her  right  foot  was  thrust  forward  a  little  under  the  hem 
of  her  riding-skirt. 

But  Amalie  did  not  continue  the  subject.  The  words 
which  she  had  that  morning  determined  to  speak  were  still 
unspoken.  She  wished  to  speak  them  now.  The  after- 


An  Idyll  at  Modling  385 

noon  was  wearing  to  evening ;  but  even  now  she  was  unwill- 
ing to  mar  the  tranced  hours  of  this  celestial  day. 

She  turned  restlessly,  changing  her  position. 

"How  hot  the  sun  still  is!  What  is  it  that  makes  a  man 
a  Bonaparte,  Heinrich?  I  have  been  watching  that  green 
fly  by  the  spider's  web,  there,  between  those  two  pines, 
these  last  ten  minutes.  He  must  be  a  cunning,  last  sum- 
mer's fly,  doing  it  to  torment  the  spider.  This  evening  is 
lost  to  us.  Why  does  M.  Uvarow  wish  to  see  Beethoven?" 

"He  has  heard  of  his  new  symphony.  He  has  been  of 
service  to  Belli  and  returns  to  Troppau  and  thence  to 
Petersburg  to-morrow." 

She  began  to  play  with  the  fingers  of  his  hand  resting 
on  the  turf  near  her.  The  rings  on  her  own  sparkled  in  the 
sun.  "If  those  fingers  of  yours  were  the  meshes  of  a 
spider's  web  these  iridescent  flies  on  mine  would  soon  be 
caught!"  she  said.  And  she  imprisoned  his  hand  under 
both  her  own  against  her  knee. 

A  sudden  hush  and  quietude  had  caught  the  world,  a 
stillness  within  a  stillness.  Far  below  she  heard  the  faint 
murmur  of  a  brook  unheard  till  now.  Everywhere  were  the 
golden  browns  of  autumn;  the  very  air,  motionless  as  a 
translucent  lake  above  the  valley,  was  pervaded  by  the 
melancholy  russet  gleams. 

And  the  peace  of  exterior  nature  and  the  autumn  day — the 
woods,  the  resting  clouds,  the  mist-suffused  hills,  the  shadow 
of  the  pine-stem,  the  pattern  worked  by  the  bracken  fronds 
on  the  red  sand,  the  sunlight  asleep  at  the  foot  of  the  hills, 
the  far-off  dreaming  spires  and  domes — passing  into  her 
heart,  became  the  peace  of  the  world-soul  dreaming  of 
Azbar;  and  the  beauty  of  nature,  passing  into  her  soul, 
was  projected  upon  the  infinite  future  and  became  the 
world-soul's  ecstasy,  in  its  end  attained,  a  paean  trium- 
phant, a  transport  that  strove  to  her  lips  in  words  and  was 
still  repressed. 
25 


386  Schonbrunn 

In  a  silent  but  quivering  mighty  assertion  of  the  faith  that 
was  his  faith  she  murmured  half  to  herself,  turning  to  the 
immense  steep  curve  of  the  eastern  sky,  blue  from  the  zenith 
to  the  horizon  line : 

"God  can  never  exhaust  the  wonder  of  His  own  being, 
nor  of  those  worlds,  not  this  nor  mine.  For  if  this  that  I 
feel  is  not  God,  there  is  for  me  no  God.  I  could  weep  with 
the  bliss  of  it;  weep  with  the  pain  of  it." 

VII 

Enervated  yet  exalted,  she  turned  to  her  lover. 

"Let  us  walk  up  the  ravine,  shall  we?" 

She  stood  up.  He  aided  her  to  pick  the  pine-needles  from 
her  dress,  pressing  his  lips  to  the  outline  of  her  knees. 

They  began  their  walk.  Sometimes  it  led  along  a  wooded 
path  chequered  with  sunshine,  sometimes  in  the  open  they 
skirted  a  sunburnt  slope  strewn  with  acorns.  Far  down 
on  their  right  through  tangled  bushes  the  dark  glimmer 
of  the  stream  followed  them. 

Suddenly  an  arch  of  boughs,  so  thick  and  dark  that  it 
might  have  been  the  roof  of  a  natural  temple,  rose  above 
them.  With  a  strained  laugh  she  took  his  hand  and  said 
in  a  half -choked  voice: 

"I  have  something  to  say  to  you — something  I  have  tried 
to  say  all  day. " 

But  the  roof  disparted  and  they  came  out  on  a  platform 
overlooking  a  most  wide  landscape — north-westward,  on 
their  left,  the  dark  outlines  of  the  Wienerwald ;  nearer  them, 
in  the  plains  the  ruins  of  a  castle;  and  barring  the  horizon 
northward,  the  shimmering  towers  and  domes  of  Vienna 
under  their  soft  canopy  of  smoke. 

She  sat  down  on  a  boulder.  Rentzdorf  stretched  himself 
on  the  turf,  watching  her  hand  as  it  tugged  at  some  stalks  of 
heather — the  exquisite  modelling  of  each  finger,  the  tint  and 
setting  of  the  nail. 


An  Idyll  at  Modling  387 

Suddenly  he  saw  that  she  was  trembling  convulsively. 

"Dearest,  dearest,  what  is  it?"  He  sprang  to  his  feet. 
"Great  God,  you  are  weeping?" 

She  made  a  vague  gesture. 

"Ah,  "he  said,  "I  know." 

"Yes, "  she  answered.     " It  is  that  again." 

"When  did  you  hear?" 

"This  morning — as  I  was  about  to  ride  to  your  lodging." 

There  was  a  silence. 

"  Well  ?    And  when  does  he  come  back  ? ' ' 

"  It  may  be  to-day. " 

She  was  resolute  to  spare  neither  him  nor  herself,  hating 
all  subterfuge. 

A  long,  to  her  a  terrible,  pause  ensued. 

"It  is  soon,"  he  muttered;  but  with  a  poignant  sense 
of  her  misery  he  interrupted  the  sarcasm.  "It  does  not 
matter,  Amalie ;  it  is  simply  nothing.  Indeed,  I  have  known 
this  all  day.  It  is  nothing. " 

An  immense  happiness  swept  over  her  like  a  sea.  He 
loved  her.  His  love — earth,  heaven,  God,  the  past,  all 
were  in  that. 

"Heinrich  ..." 

Her  emotion  left  a  rigid  pallor,  ageing  her  features,  touch- 
ing their  beauty  with  an  unendurable  pathos — the  premoni- 
tions of  decay. 

"There  is  a  way  to  end  it. " 

"To  end  it?" 

"  It  is  this  which  I  really  wished  to  say  to  you. " 

To  his  amazement  and  to  her  own  a  burst  of  distractingly 
sweet  laughter  followed  the  words,  sweet  as  well-tuned 
bells  or  the  plash  of  the  stream  far  below,  hung  with  beds 
of  violets. 

How  is  a  woman  unembarrassedly  to  offer  herself  to  a 
man  who  may  not  want  her?  That  was  the  idea  at  which 
she  laughed. 


388  Schonbrunn 

"You  asked  me  last  night, "  she  began;  but  breaking  the 
construction  of  her  sentence, — "I  mean,"  she  stammered, 
"I  do  not  care  whether  I  ride  back  again  with  Toe  and 
Johann,  or  whether  I  ever  enter  Vienna  again. "  And  like 
snow  that  lies  in  glistening  inertness,  apparently  frozen 
into  motionlessness  for  ever,  but  at  the  spring's  first  laugh- 
ing touch  rushes  in  confusion  down  the  green  slope,  so  her 
awkwardness  dissolved  in  quick  words,  golden  as  the  wind's 
breath  above  beds  of  roses. 

"This?"  Rentzdorf  said.  "Great  God— this?  Oh,  you 
heaven  of  heavens,  you  God-given  Amalie !  Now  I  under- 
stand. But  why?  Why?  And  to-day?" 

"Last  night — what  you  said  last  night — "  and  with  a 
vivid  blush  she  added,  "I  wished  to  give  you  my  youth — 
what  I  have  left  of  it!" 

He  did  not  like  the  sentence,  and  she  divined  this.  Yet 
like  soaring  music  the  wonder  of  this  woman's  love  was 
on  him,  an  increasing  glory — this,  and  the  might  of  her 
beauty,  strong  as  Circe's  wine,  sweet  as  the  siren's  singing. 

For  ever — to  possess  this  woman  for  ever;  amid  inviolate 
leisure,  day  by  day,  night  by  night,  living  hour  by  hour 
together  the  long  love-death,  the  long  love-life  that  their 
hours  would  be,  steeped  in  everlastingness !  "It  is  as 
well,"  she  had  once  said,  lifting  her  heavy  brow,  "that 
we  have  to  separate  sometimes ;  for  if  we  were  together  it  is 
certain  we  should  not  discredit  Vienna  by  living  too  long!" 

But  like  a  glint  of  evil  across  this  transport  came  the 
question :  His  art  ?  Would  a  daily  life  with  her  aid  or  im- 
pede his  art?  It  would  free  him,  absent  or  present,  from 
harassing  damnable  suspicions  and  jealousies.  It  would 
render  unnecessary  the  terrible  balm  he  had  been  forced  to 
apply  to  the  wound — the  reasoning  that,  whatever  craving 
or  joy  or  delight  was  her  delight,  ought  to  be  his,  even 
if  it  were  the  delight  in  another's  kiss.  This  hell  that 
mocked  heaven  would  be  over.  It  would  free  him  too 


An  Idyll  at  Modling  389 

from  those  encounters  with  her  husband  the  amused  ironic 
stare — '  What  the  devil  can  you  see  in  my  wife  ? '  He  had 
the  answer  at  hand,  this  same  dog-trainer  'saw'  nothing 
in  the  Medici  Venus,  nothing  in  the  frieze  of  the  Par- 
thenon. Yet  it  irked  him;  for  that  man  had  known  her  in 
her  maidenhood. 

The  temptation  was  extreme,  violent,  sudden  and  all 
but  irresistible. 

But  in  an  instant  all  was  confounded  by  the  question — 
"At  what  price?" 

The  answer  was  categoric, — "This  woman's  humiliation." 

"She  trusts  me.     I  cannot  trust  her." 

He  turned  to  her. 

"Well?"  she  said,  gazing  into  his  face.     "Well?" 

From  brow  to  foot  a  breathing  miracle,  there  she  stood, 
compact  of  every  excellence  that  on  earth  he  had  dreamed 
of  in  woman ;  in  her  character,  even  in  her  stormy  exacting- 
ness,  her  jealous  temper,  her  weakness,  her  strength,  her 
habits  of  body  and  mind,  an  unwearying  interest.  For 
him  at  least  other  women  existed  but  to  set  off  this  woman's 
perfections;  or  if  desires  for  other  women  rose,  as  rise 
they  must,  at  a  passing  perfume,  the  line  of  an  arm  or 
waist,  they  had  been  streams  that,  tributary,  fed  the  greater 
river  of  his  passion  for  Amalie;  this  Rentzdorf  could  say, 
not  to  her  merely,  but  in  solitude  in  the  secret  interviews 
with  his  own  heart. 

"Amalie  ..." 

She  turned  swiftly,  throwing  back  her  veil. 

"Ah,  God,  Heinrich,  beloved,  how  I  love  you!  How  I 
love  you!" 

Her  arms  seized  him;  her  mouth,  stammering  her  ecstasy, 
was  pressed  against  his  mouth.  In  the  transport  of  that 
embrace  all  foundered.  Beauty  by  its  own  excess  was  in 
dissolution ;  life  and  form  by  their  own  excess  hurried  to  self- 
destruction;  but  again,  upon  this  swirling  chaos  and  wreck- 


39°  Schonbrunn 

age  of  worlds,  her  pallid  face  rose  like  a  lotus  upon 
midnight  pools,  and  her  mouth  still  thirsted  for  his  with 
a  thirst  which  time  might  annihilate  but  never  assuage. 
Will,  reason,  the  right  course,  the  wrong  course,  argument 
and  resolution — she  had  groped  about  amongst  those  for- 
mulas all  that  day,  all  these  years;  but  once  more,  in  a  single 
blinding  splendour,  his  desire  and  her  desire  flashing  into 
identity  with  God's  desire,  all  was  answered,  for  all  was 
vision. 

Shuddering,  their  trembling  hands  still  clung  together, 
interlinked. 

"Other  things  are  means,"  Rentzdorf  said  slowly;  "this 
is  an  end.  No  sublimity  of  doing  or  suffering  excels  this. 
Discomfort  we  shall  find,  you  and  I,  whichever  path  we 
take — nothing  matters,  for  this  shall  be  with  us." 

Something  elemental  yet  eternal,  absorbing  the  heart, 
making  the  senses  a  transport  utterly,  yet  in  this  en- 
trancement  binding  the  soul,  the  senses'  ancient  critic; 
an  instinct,  yet  so  transfigured  by  the  soul  in  its  long  voyag- 
ings  that  it  was  now  the  forlorn  hope  of  a  God,  and  of  the 
same  God  the  supreme  emotion;  adding  their  glory  to 
life's  sanctitudes,  unavailable  livious  ecstasy  was  abso- 
lutely redeeming  art  from  the  desecration  of  praise,  for  in 
this  oblivious  ecstasy  was  at  once  art's  inspiration  and  its 
hallowing  force.  Such  was  the  passion  of  Rentzdorf  and 
Amalie. 

"As  for  last  night,  it  is  the  familiar  cause,  Amalie.  When 
we  are  apart  the  world  saturates  us ;  when  we  come  together 
too  suddenly  its  poison  is  still  in  us.  That  is  how  I  explain 
last  night." 

They  stood  up.  He  saw  the  slow  tears  sparkling  on  her 
lower  eyelids;  but  on  the  face  was  happiness,  celestial 
sweetness.  A  strange  gaiety  raised  them  above  fear  and 
above  hope,  a  tragic  lightheartedness,  the  serenity  of  Greek 
heroes  and  Greek  gods,  secure  of  the  leisure  of  eternity. 


An  Idyll  at  Modling  391 

"What  is  the  place  of  laughter? "  she  had  once  asked.  She 
knew  it  now — the  superfluous  overflowing  "joy,"  the 
superfluous  overflowing  consciousness  of  the  world-doom 
in  God's  doom. 

This  day,  this  hour  was  the  most  consummate  in  their 
love.  Both  made  this  attestation,  both  made  this  interpre- 
tation of  the  day. 

But  night  was  on  them  unawares.  Northward,  the 
Wienerwald  heights  stood  out  in  blue-black  masses.  All 
between  was  flooded  with  a  dying  golden  light.  The 
shadows  on  the  grass  had  lost  their  outlines :  under  the  trees 
the  twilight  was  thickening  fast. 

An  ineffable  sadness  came  down  on  both.  The  end  of 
things — in  nature,  in  this  day's  drama,  in  this  long  war — 
life's  end,  the  end  of  their  passion,  world's  end,  time's  end, 
God's  end. 

"I  had  forgotten,"  she  said,  rousing  herself.  "Rothgar 
has  cast  a  shoe:  we  must  take  the  short  cut  to  the  stables. " 

She  gathered  up  her  skirt,  and,  her  whip  under  her  arm, 
she  began  to  descend  the  path.  But  she  turned,  and  her 
eyes  were  preternaturally  lustrous  through  her  veil. 

"Dearest,  dearest  .  .  .  We  can  ride  together  the  last 
part  of  the  way?  Now  you  must  talk  to  Toe.  She  will 
want  to  tell  you  of  her  engagement." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

A  VIENNESE  POET  AND  A   VIENNESE  COMPOSER 


SAVARY'S  prognostication  was  justified.  Less  than 
thirty-six  hours  had  elapsed  since  the  attempt  upon 
Napoleon's  life  and  already  in  Vienna  that  attempt  was 
forgotten.  A  silent  shrug  of  the  shoulders  was  the  answer 
to  any  remark  or  conjecture  about  Staps's  purpose  or  his 
fate. 

"The  Treaty— has  the  Emperor  ratified  the  Treaty?" 

That  alone  was  worth  thinking  about;  that  alone  worth 
speaking  about. 

At  about  eleven  o'clock  that  night  Rentzdorf  and  the  big 
young  Russian  attache",  Dmitri  Miklailovitch  Uvarow, 
entered  the  celebrated  Cafe"  Florian  in  the  Alleegasse.  It 
was  crowded  with  visitors  of  both  sexes. 

"Ah,  what  is  that?"  Uvarow  suddenly  asked  in  Russian. 

The  Beresanyi  "Chor, "  a  celebrated  tzigane  orchestra 
raised  by  Prince  Adolf  Beresanyi,  had  slipped  into  the 
capitol,  that  afternoon,  and  were  now,  amid  the  clapping 
of  hands  and  the  jingling  of  glasses,  climbing  noisily  into 
their  places  in  the  small  amphitheatre  that  had  long  stood 
empty. 

"Machiavelli  is  right,"  said  the  Russian.  "Men  are  in 
all  times  and  in  all  places  the  same.  Alaric  is  at  the  gates 
— but  Rome  crowds  to  the  circus  as  usual." 

392 


Viennese  Poet  and  Viennese  Composer  393 

He  looked  at  Rentzdorf.  The  latter,  his  left  hand 
thrust  into  the  folds  of  his  cloak,  stood  surveying  the 
shifting,  richly  coloured  scene.  His  quiet  astonished  his 
companion. 

"He  is  a  Viennese,"  thought  the  Russian,  "and  knows 
Vienna's  ways.  In  Russia  during  the  cholera  the  danger 
to  those  we  hate  makes  our  own  danger  endurable.  Bah, 
Austria  has  signed  a  shameful  peace;  but  each  man's  dis- 
grace to-day  is  also  the  disgrace  of  his  rival." 

At  a  table  near  Uvarow,  a  clenched  fist  made  me  glasses 
and  decanters  ring;  and  in  a  low,  guttural,  emphatic  voice 
the  table-thumper  began  to  expatiate  importantly  on  the 
secret  clauses  of  the  Treaty.  He  was  an  honest  Moravian 
grain-merchant  and,  in  his  own  trade,  sensible  enough 
and  shrewd ;  now  he  was  posing  as  a  Kaunitz. 

"  Defeated  ? "  said  he.  "  Not  we ;  not  a  bit  of  it !  You'll 
see.  Bonaparte  knows  what  he  is  about.  So  does  our 
Kaiser.  It's  a  drawn  game.  What?" 

At  a  more  distant  table  a  voice  gave  the  toast — "Franz 
der  Zweite,  unser  Kaiser!  Hoch!  Hoch!"  Every  man 
and  woman  in  the  room  sprang  to  their  feet — "Our  Em- 
peror! Austria  for  ever!"  The  tzigane  orchestra  burst 
into  the  national  hymn. 

"That  is  not  how  Paris  would  acclaim  Bonaparte  if  he  had 
returned  defeated, "  the  Russian  said  to  Rentzdorf,  his  brown 
eyes  filming;  for,  like  many  young  men  of  the  era,  Uvarow 
was  "sentimentalisch,"  and  easily  moved. 

Rentzdorf  shrugged  his  shoulders.  He  was  less  disposed 
than  the  Russian  to  admire  this  undistinguishing  devotion 
to  a  monarch,  heroic  or  commonplace,  bungler  or  man  of 
genius. 

II 

Turning  at  last,  Rentzdorf  crossed  a  passage  and  pushed 
the  door  of  one  of  the  private  rooms  that  ranged  round 


394  Schonbrunn 

the  immense  public  room.  Uvarow  was  about  to  follow 
him  in,  but  with  an  imperative  glance  Rentzdorf  laid  his 
hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"Is  it  here?"  the  Russian  asked. 

For  answer  Rentzdorf  pointed  to  the  figure  of  a  man 
seated  behind  a  table,  the  sole  occupant  of  the  room. 

Beethoven,  his  head  with  its  mane  of  jet-black  hair 
propped  on  both  his  hands,  was  engrossed  in  thought, 
apparently  oblivious  of  the  riot  and  surging  joy  around  him. 
His  lips  worked;  occasionally  a  violent  thrust  forward  of 
the  lower  jaw  showed  that  he  was  chanting  or  muttering  to 
himself.  A  note-book  lay  on  the  marble  table-top  between 
his  elbows.  Abstracted  and  withdrawn,  he  sat  there  in  the 
lonely  sublimity  of  stern  and  profound  thought.  Years 
and  deafness  had  created  about  him  a  solitude  in  which  he 
had  ceased  to  expect  intruders. 

Rentzdorf  pushed  open  the  glass  door,  and  stood  aside  to 
allow  Uvarow  as  his  guest  to  enter.  Beethoven,  lifting 
his  head,  stared  at  the  Russian.  His  astonishment  became 
anger,  and  the  cry,  "  Heraus ! "  Out  with  you,  was  on  his  lips. 
Suddenly  behind  Uvarow's  shoulder  he  saw  Rentzdorf.  His 
face  was  instantly  transfigured,  and  with  a  joyous  shout  he 
sprang  to  his  feet. 

"Heinrich,  du  lieber  Heinrich!" 

He  threw  his  arms  about  his  friend,  repeating  his  name, 
showering  questions — Why  had  he  left  Buda-Pesth?  Where 
was  the  Archduke?  And  this  treaty?  What  infamy? 
And  then  the  question,  not  at  once  intelligible  to  Rentz- 
dorf,— "Der  Knabe?  What  about  the  lad?  What  news 
of  the  young  hero?" 

Rentzdorf  introduced  Uvarow. 

"Ach,  was?"  Beethoven  protested.  "No  apologizing! 
Well,  you  must  forgive  a  German.  On  so  black  a  day  some 
wish  company, " — he  indicated  the  next  room — "some  wish 
solitude.  But  you,  I  am  glad  to  see  you. " 


Viennese  Poet  and  Viennese  Composer  395 

Uvarow,  in  whom  something  of  the  Petersburg  student 
still  lingered,  had  forgotten  his  grim  reception.  He  was  for 
the  first  time  in  front  of  the  idol  of  his  musical  enthusiasm ; 
and  though  he  did  not  find  in  him  the  god-like  physiognomy 
he  had  anticipated,  nevertheless  he  saw  a  face  and  bearing 
and  gestures  and  energy  vraiment  extraordinaires,  as  he 
wrote  to  his  sister  next  day,  "and  like  those  of  a  man 
possessed  with  a  demon  that  leaves  him  no  rest  but  tears 
and  rends  him  incessantly." 

He  began  an  address  fitting  the  occasion.  This  was  a 
Russian  craze  or  trick  of  the  epoch.  Potiamkin,  the  Orloffs, 
Panin,  Speranski  himself,  all  indulged  in  it.  It  was  a  par- 
venu nation's  way  of  attesting  its  good  manners.  "I  am  a 
lover  of  nature, "  said  he;  and  he  placed  his  hand  on  his  left 
breast  and  looked  earnestly  at  Beethoven.  "I  can  endure 
privations;  I  love  simplicity  and  am  sensitive — sensible — 
to  the  innocence  of  rustic  life.  I  have  heard  the  great  music 
of  your  German  masters  and  I  have  heard  the  ocean  in  a 
storm;  but  never  till  I  heard  your  divine  Fifth  Symphony" 
— (the  Sixth  was  in  1809  numbered  Five) — "never  have  I 
heard  all  these — the  brook,  the  thunder,  the  ocean,  the 
tempest,  in  one  piece,  vivid  as  in  a  picture  of  the  immortal 
Claude  Lorraine." 

Was  this  harangue  impromptu  or  studied  ?  The  pleasant 
thing  was  that  it  was  sincere;  the  fatiguing  thing  was  that 
Beethoven,  deaf  and  understanding  French  badly,  had  not 
taken  in  a  single  syllable. 

"Was  sagt  der  Herr?"  he  asked  Rentzdorf  curtly. 

Rentzdorf  translated  the  Russian's  high-flown  speech  into 
temperate  German.  M.  Uvarow,  he  explained,  was  an  at- 
tache in  the  Russian  service,  and  in  music  an  enthusiast  for 
the  German  school;  he  had  found  in  Beethoven's  own  works, 
especially  in  his  symphonies,  an  inspiration  greater  than  that 
of  Haydn  or  Mozart.  Finally,  M.  Uvarow  had  only  this  one 
night  in  Vienna;  to-morrow  he  was  returning  to  Troppau. 


396  Schonbrunn 

"Ah,  to  Troppau?"  said  Beethoven.  "Excellent!  Is 
that  rock  of  German  liberty  still  there — minister  vom 
Stein?" 

Uvarow  assured  him  that  Stein  was  still  at  Troppau ;  he 
himself  had  indeed  obtained  the  honour  of  a  long  conver- 
sation, walking  to  and  fro  in  the  village  meadows  with  him 
and  with  M.  Pozzo  di  Borgo  only  four  days  ago.  M.  Stein 
had  spoken  with  admiration  of  Austria's  valour;  of  Stadion's 
and  Wellington's  victories. 

"He  is  not  afraid  then?  He,  at  least,  does  not  despair 
of  Germany?"  Beethoven  asked.  "Ach,  das  ist  doch 
wohl." 

But  he  sank  immediately  into  sombre  silence. 

Stein's  name  had  in  1809  a  peculiar  magnetism.  It 
stood  for  ardour  yet  seriousness ;  it  was  free  from  the  intem- 
perate zeal  of  the  Tugendbund.  It  was  dissociated  from 
the  half-rebellious  anarchy  of  Schill's  and  Brunswick's 
risings.  Finally,  it  stood  for  the  unconquerable  moral 
grandeur  of  Germany  ranged  against  the  violence  and  law- 
less might  of  Napoleon. 

All  at  once  Beethoven  reverted  to  the  Staps  incident. 
The  thick-rimmed  spectacles  were  flung  off ;  the  black  eyes 
blazed,  and  the  brick-red  countenance  seemed  to  stream 
with  a  kind  of  glory: 

"  Der  Knabe  ?  Der  Knabe — this  heroic  lad — where  is  he  ? 
What  has  been  done  with  him?  What  have  you  heard? 
That  blood-gorged  tyrant,  ach,  if  I  could  fight  battles  as  I 
can  write  music !  But  it  is  useless,  useless.  Blind  chance 
rules  this  earth — blind  chance. " 

Rentzdorf  was  puzzled.  He  had  heard  the  rumour  of 
the  attack  on  Napoleon,  but  in  1809  rumours  of  that  kind 
were  rife  and  no  man  of  sense  any  longer  listened  in  them. 
In  his  own  circle  Staps's  action  was  discredited  or  dis- 
believed. Bolli  himself  had  witnessed  the  incident  and 
declared  positively  that  it  was  merely  the  arrest  of  a  young 


Viennese  Poet  and  Viennese  Composer  397 

Viennese  of  the  middle  class  too  eager  to  present  a  petition, 
or  simply  too  eager  to  see  the  French  Emperor. 

Uvarow,  however,  after  a  furtive  glance  towards  Rentz- 
dorf,  began  in  loud  French  to  explain  the  affair.  Bee- 
thoven, only  half  understanding,  shook  his  head  impatiently 
and  sat  muttering  to  himself;  "Murder  and  yet  murder. 
Still  he  goes  on  triumphing.  What  will  be  the  end?  And 
God  does  nothing.  God  does  not  say  a  word!" 

All  that  summer  he  had  been  oppressed  by  the  spectacle 
of  continuous  triumphant  wrong.  Was  Napoleon  never 
to  be  overthrown?  He  had  begun  to  question  the  justice 
of  God, — that  exterior  personal  God  whom,  in  the  fashion- 
able deism  of  many  cultured  minds  in  France  and  Germany, 
Beethoven  conceived  as  a  beneficent  and  over-ruling  des- 
pot, rewarding  and  punishing  in  some  indistinct  Heaven 
or  Hell,  all  men  and  women  for  the  good  or  evil  performed 
on  this  earth.  Was  God  a  God  of  righteousness?  Why 
then  was  He  silent  now?  Why  did  He  sit  still  whilst 
Napoleon  rode  in  blood  from  victory  to  victory? 

And,  strangely  enough,  these  contradictions  had  fitted 
in  with  his  personal  mood  as  an  artist.  For  during  the 
preceding  winter  and  all  the  summer  the  subject  of  Egmont 
had  obsessed  him — on  the  one  hand,  the  irresistible  power 
of  an  Alva,  bigoted,  crafty,  and  pitiless,  and,  on  the  other, 
ranged  against  it,  the  royally  confiding  strength,  faith,  and 
heroic  idealism  of  Egmont.  Why  was  the  latter  destroyed? 
True  to  his  temper,  and  to  his  resolve  to  find  something 
"good"  in  apparent  evil,  Beethoven  had  struggled  to  con- 
sole himself  for  Egmont's  death  on  the  scaffold  by  the 
contemplation  of  his  after  fame.  Was  not  the  glory  of 
an  independent  Netherlands  his  work?  Was  it  not  like  a 
spacious  tree  rooted  in  his  bloody  grave?  There,  he 
reasoned,  was  Egmont's  divine  reward;  there  was  Egmont's 
"heaven."  And  during  these  last  two  days,  the  rumours 
of  the  young  Thuringian's  attempt  on  Napoleon's  life,  con- 


398  Schonbrunn 

fused,  unreliable,  vague  and  changing  as  they  were,  had 
nevertheless  wrought  him  to  the  height.  It  was  Egmont's 
heroism  over  again,  but  in  Germany,  not  the  Netherlands; 
and  in  an  agony  of  illumination  he  had  jotted  down  one  of 
the  sublimely  terrible  phrases  which  he  afterwards  wove 
into  the  "Victory  Hymn  "  of  the  Egmont  overture — the  most 
deathless  monument  whether  to  Friedrich  Staps  or  to 
"Young  Germany, "  the  Germany  of  1809  and  the  Germany 
of  1813,  that  genius  or  devotion  will  ever  raise. 

The  motifs  of  that  hymn  and  other  motifs,  nebulous  or 
precise,  breathing  the  same  lofty  clear  defiant  spirit,  had 
been  thundering  in  his  ears  all  day;  and  all  day  in  his  dingy 
lodging  near  the  Karnthner  he  had  sat  brooding  over  the 
young  Thuringian's  action  and  the  possibilities  of  his  fate. 
Rentzdorf 's  return  alone  had  dragged  him  from  his  lair. 
Yet  to-night  there  could  be  nothing  of  the  banter  and 
exuberant  wit,  the  huge  laughter,  and  the  fond  interchange 
of  ideas  upon  poetry  and  music  without  end,  which,  a 
year  before,  had  made  their  meetings  so  memorable. 

in 

In  the  pause  of  silence — the  silence  which  succeeds  the 
first  glad  outburst  in  a  meeting  of  friends — Uvarow,  with 
ceremonious  grace,  held  out  his  snuff-box.  Rentzdorf, 
though  he  detested  the  practice,  accepted,  out  of  courtesy 
to  a  stranger.  Beethoven  brusquely  declined. 

"He  neither  smokes  nor  snuffs,"  Rentzdorf  said  apologeti- 
cally to  the  Russian.  And  in  a  rapid  aside,  he  added, 
"Speak  straight  to  him,  looking  at  him  whilst  you  speak." 

"  He  is  deaf  then  ?    The  report  is  true  ? " 

"Yes." 

"Has  it  lasted  long?  Is  there  no  hope  of  a  cure?" 
Uvarow  began  again,  speaking  in  an  awestruck,  over- 
excited whisper. 


Viennese  Poet  and  Viennese  Composer  399 

"  Do  not  whisper  to  me,  I  beg  of  you, "  Rentzdorf  remon- 
strated. "Speak  openly,  but  low.  It  began  nine  years 
ago.  He  has  tried  every  remedy. " 

"How  frightful !    How  piteous ! " 

"Piteous?    Yes;  as  a  blinded  eagle." 

Beethoven,  thinking  from  Rentzdorf's  unconcerned  face 
that  his  talk  with  Uvarow  was  on  some  everyday  topic* 
placed  his  hand  on  the  poet's  shoulder  and  looked  at  him 
with  smiling  affection. 

"You  at  least  look  fa  mo  j,  splendid,"  he  said;  "and  you 
are  a  hero.  We  others,  we  speak  about  heroes;  you  are 
the  thing  itself.  And  I  saw  your  Liechtenstein  yesterday 
and  took  off  my  hat  to  him  as  I  would  not  take  it  off  to  the 
Emperor.  He  has  the  Roman  air — high,  unimpeded,  serene. 
So  sieht  ein  Held  aus!  Yes;  and  so  you  too  were  at  the 
ball  last  night?  I  go  no  longer  to  balls.  At  five  and  thirty 
one's  dancing  days  are  done."  He  frowned. 

Rentzdorf  knew  very  well  that  Beethoven  was  forty  or 
near  it;  but  it  was  a  weakness  of  the  composer  to  under- 
state his  years.  It  was  part  of  the  fashion  and  swagger  of 
his  epoch.  Every  man  wished  to  do,  or  to  seem  to  have 
done,  great  things  in  his  youth,  in  the  shortest  possible 
time,  or  in  the  most  disadvantageous  circumstances — to 
have  written  poems  whilst  dressing  before  or  undressing 
after  a  ball;  to  have  composed  overtures  in  the  small  hours 
after  a  midnight  debauch. 

"Five  and  thirty!"  Uvarow  protested  in  imperfect 
German.  "  That  is  nothing.  Marshal  Davout " 

"This  infamy!"  Beethoven  resumed.  "O  this  infamy! 
Germany  is  buried  in  this  peace  as  in  a  grave." 

His  gesture  was  horribly  expressive.  His  habitual  look 
of  "possession"  was  intensified. 

"Blind  chance!  That  is  the  heart  of  things.  You  are  a 
warrior  and  a  thinker,  Heinrich;  I  am  only  a  poor  artist. 
What  gives  this  man  his  power?  The  whole  earth  writhes 


400  Schonbrunn 

under  his  iron  heel.  Why?  Ah,  would  to  God  I  were 
blind  as  well  as  deaf — deaf  and  blind  as  this  stone. " 

He  struck  the  marble  top  of  the  table  with  his  clenched 
fist.  Uvarow  saw  the  knuckles  whiten  and  the  coarse  hairs 
on  the  back  of  the  fingers  stand  out  in  odd  distinctness. 
The  nail  of  the  thumb  was  flattish  and  ill  kept. 

Rentzdorf,  familiar  with  Beethoven's  temperament,  felt 
the  approach  of  one  of  those  moods  of  colossal  gloom  which 
echo  in  his  later  sonatas  and  symphonies.  He  never 
dreamed  of  criticizing  these  attacks.  Ill  health,  poverty, 
the  envious  insults  of  rivals  or  enemies,  the  veiled  strictures 
or  caricatures  of  professed  friends,  his  best  works  misunder- 
stood or  misrepresented — how  could  Beethoven  be  expected 
to  imitate  the  equable  subservience  of  a  Haydn,  or  assume 
Goethe's  staid  olympianism?  And  Rentzdorf  knew  of  the 
venomous  attacks  that  very  spring  upon  his  two  latest 
symphonies;  the  imaginary  conversation  of  the  tortured 
instruments  written  in  gall  and  envy  by  Weber;  Raupach's 
printed  sneers  at  "this  crazy,  half -blind,  half-deaf  old 
pianist. " 

"If  it  were  not  for  my  art,  my  divine  art  ...  You 
understand  me,  Heinrich;  you  at  least  understand  me." 

He  flung  forward  his  arms.  His  huge  heavy  head  rested 
on  his  wrists  for  several  seconds. 

When  he  lifted  his  face  its  look  had  changed. 

"Resignation  and  submission,"  he  said,  speaking  rather 
to  himself  than  to  his  listeners.  "Yes,  submission:  but  to 
the  will  of  God.  We  may  be  slaves,  we  Germans;  but  suffer- 
ing, unwilling  slaves!  We  are  not  Italians.  We  struggle, 
we  resist,  and  therefore  we  are  unconquered. " 

Rentzdorf,  who  spoke  openly  to  Beethoven  of  poetry 
and  art,  could  rarely,  if  ever,  express  to  him,  unless  ironi- 
cally, his  convictions  upon  religion  and  human  fate.  The 
"verger's  intellect,"  which  in  a  bitter  letter  to  Amalie  he 
had  attributed  to  Bach,  raised  a  barrier  between  himself 


Viennese  Poet  and  Viennese  Composer  401 

and  Beethoven  also.  The  oftener  he  met  him  the  more 
fixed  became  his  conviction  that  the  tenor  is  closely  allied 
to  the  composer,  and  that  music  amongst  the  greater 
arts  is  the  nearest  to  that  of  the  mountebank  or  the  six- 
fingered  monstrosity.  Uvarow,  on  the  other  hand,  who 
was  a  reader  of  Fenelon,  and  a  frequenter  of  the  Masonic 
and  Quietist  coteries  of  Petersburg,  was  excited  by  Bee- 
thoven's method  of  self -consolation.  It  resembled  Quiet- 
ism; and  he  now  quoted  eagerly  the  maxims — "  Do  nothing; 
for  all  is  done  .  .  .  Resist  not  evil  .  .  .  Imitate  the 
water,  the  lowliest  yet  mightiest  of  things." 

"What  is  our  deliverance?"  he  said  with  a  fine  boyish 
earnestness.  "What  puts  us  beyond  Napoleon's  power? 
To  desire  only  the  things  which  the  tyrant  cannot  assail ;  to 
renounce  pleasures  and  gold ;  above  all,  to  renounce  praise, 
Bonaparte's  god.  He  who  covets  men's  praise  shall  wither 
under  men's  curses.  That  will  be  Bonaparte's  doom. " 

Earnestness  always  impressed  Beethoven.  He  made  the 
young  Russian  repeat  the  words  in  German,  he  himself 
alternately  nodding  his  huge  head,  or  tapping  the  table  to 
indicate  his  disapprobation  or  misunderstanding. 

IV 

Rentzdorf  sat  watching  the  two  men's  faces. 

Uvarow,  his  voice  out  of  hand,  was  urging  the  stale 
thesis  that  Napoleon  ought  to  have  made  permanent  peace 
long  ago;  Washington  would  have  done  this,  even  Moreau; 
but  in  Bonaparte  "lust  of  dominion"  had  driven  him  to 
violate  the  Peace  of  Amiens. 

Impatient,  Rentzdorf  asked  abruptly: 

"Where  would  you  have  had  him  stop?     In  1797?    He 

dared  not.     Campo  Formio  was  a  truce  and  he  knew  it. 

The  monarchies  were  arming,   Russia,   Austria,   Prussia, 

England.     He  struck  at  England  in  Egypt.     His  absence 

26 


402  Schonbrunn 

in  Egypt  led  to  the  loss  of  his  conquests  in  Italy:  Egypt, 
therefore,  led  to  Marengo.  And  after  Marengo,  how  is  he, 
First  Consul,  absolute  despot  of  unexampled  armies,  the 
inheritor  of  the  glory  at  once  of  the  Revolution  and  of  the 
Bourbon  monarchs,  to  acquiesce  in  England's  retention 
of  half  this  planet?  Rome's  legions  conquered  the  world 
at  the  point  of  their  swords.  England  has  filched  it  like 
a  common  thief  whilst  Europe  slept.  What  soldier  or 
statesman  who  has  taken  upon  himself  the  imagination  of  a 
great  people  can  tolerate  this  without  a  secret  rage?  It  is 
for  cuistres  to  discuss  whether  Pitt  were  willing  or  unwilling 
to  surrender  Malta.  Bonaparte,  as  Louis  XV. 's  successor, 
has  Rossbach  to  efface;  he  has  Plassey  to  avenge.  But 
Jena  did  this,  you  will  say.  Why  did  he  not  stop  there? 
Jena,  like  Austerlitz,  is  a  phase  in  a  gigantic  plan,  which, 
when  complete,  shall  un-write  the  history  of  the  centuries. 
Go  back  five  years.  His  armies  in  1804  are  cantoned  round 
Boulogne,  ready  for  the  invasion  of  England;  but  presto! 
he  discovers  that  behind  him  Austria  is  in  arms;  that 
Russia  is  in  arms;  that  Prussia  is  about  to  join  them.  In  a 
second  he  abandons  his  grip  which  was  tightening  on  Eng- 
land, and,  in  order  to  secure  his  communications  for  the 
future,  he  determines  to  handcuff  Europe.  Thus  Boulogne 
leads  to  Ulna  and  Ulna  to  Austerlitz,  and  Austerlitz  to  Jena, 
to  Eylau,  Friedland,  and  Tilsit.  After  Tilsit,  he  resumes  the 
campaign  against  England.  England  seizes'the  Danish  fleet. 
'Politics  is  robbery  then? '  he  says  to  his  legions.  'Robbery 
be  it,  and  he  the  greatest  who  robs  the  most  violently  or 
the  most  adroitly.  Let  your  iron  "greatness"  be  the 
destructor  of  their  hoary  worm-eaten  pretence-goodness.' 
And  that,  great  God,  that  is  the  hour  that  we  Austrians 
think  our  opportunity!  Fate's  mandate,  we  imagine, 
had  gone  forth  against  Fate's  minion !  We,  we  pose  as  the 
saviours  of  Europe!  Wagram,  a  bloodier  Austerlitz,  is  our 
instructress — viola  tout.  But  the  victor?  He  will  trample 


Viennese  Poet  and  Viennese  Composer  403 

out  the  revolt  in  Spain,  and  next  summer,  with  Russia  as 
his  extreme  right  wing,  Prussia  and  Hanover  as  his  right 
centre,  Portugal  and  Spain  as  his  left  wing,  France  and 
Belgium  and  Holland  as  his  colossal  centre,  and  now  with 
Austria  as  his  rear,  he  will  realize  the  Boulogne  design. 
For  who  will  stay  that  avalanche?  And  England  under  the 
Caudine  Forks,  nothing  stands  between  him  and  world- 
empire.  It  is  a  fair  stake  to  play  for — the  despotism  of  a 
planet — n'est-ce  pas?  No;  I  for  one  am  not  prepared  to 
say  where  Bonaparte  should  have  stopped.  Besides,  to  say 
'ought'  to  what  is  past,  to  whine  for  the  'might-have- 
been' — what  idleness!  Only  when  we  know  the  past  as 
inevitable  as  well  as  irrevocable  do  we  begin  to  understand 
either  past  or  present.  Time,  existence,  the  past,  the  pre- 
sent, man,  God — these  are  not  problems  but  the  answer  to 
a  problem." 

"And  yet, "  exclaimed  Uvarow,  "you  have  fought  against 
this  'grand  entraineur  des  hommes?" 

"I  have  fought  and  still  fight  against  him.  To  that  end 
are  we  Austrians. " 

It  was  Beethoven  who  broke  the  silence. 

"Yes,  Heinrich;  you  have  spoken  a  word.  Du  lieber 
Gott,  what  drama,  und  was  fur  ein  Held!  what  a  Hero! 
Napoleon  Bonaparte!  What  music  that  name  made  me 
hear!  What  battle  music  and  what  a  glory!  Italy,  the 
Bridge  of  Lodi,  Arcola,  Rivoli,  the  Pyramids,  Marengo — 
he  taught  the  tyrants  a  dance !  Ach,  das  war  schon,  herrlich. 
Yet  now — the  change!  But  he  is  led  by  the  hand, — and  to 
the  abyss.  Yes ;  what  rose  out  of  the  gulf  must  back  to  the 
gulf  again.  God's  path  is  on  the  sea.  He  is  led  by  the  hand, 
I  tell  you,  and  to  the  abyss.  I  see  it.  I  see  it. " 

Uvarow  gave  a  little  forced  mirthless  laugh.  It  was 
the  kind  of  laugh  that  lets  light  in  upon  a  human  char- 
acter. 

"To  a  gulf  indeed!    But  where  will  it  open,  and  when, 


404  Schonbrunn 

to  receive  this  new  Mettus  Curtius  and  his  infernal  hosts? 
That's  what  I  ask.  Eh  ? " 

He  turned  to  Beethoven  and  then  to  Rentzdorf;  but 
something  in  the  poet's  face  prevented  the  Russian  from 
continuing.  He  had  intended  in  all  good  faith  to  place 
at  this  point  the  fatuous  inanity  already  noised  abroad 
by  Madame  de  Krudener — the  white  angel  named  Alex- 
ander I.  striking  its  ethereal  talons  into  the  black  angel 
named  Napoleon. 

"Tell  me,  Ludwig, "  Rentzdorf  said  in  the  pause,  "where 
is  the  point  at  which  you  begin  to  see  in  Bonaparte  the 
asserter  of  eternal  wrong?" 

Beethoven,  to  the  Russian's  astonishment,  starting  up 
like  a  man  waking  from  a  frightful  dream,  burst  into  a 
furious  tirade,  not  against  Napoleon,  but  against  Austria. 
His  features  were  convulsed;  his  eyes,  like  burning  lamps, 
flashed  from  side  to  side. 

"Gott  in  Himmel,  you  have  spoken  a  word!  You  have 
put  in  my  soul  old  bad  thoughts,  old  glorious  thoughts. 
Austria!  What  is  Austria  to  me?  Austria — what  seas  of 
blood!  The  tyrant-oppressor,  the  everlasting  sure  friend 
of  darkness!  Hatred  of  Austria  has  made  men  heroes. 
Alliance  with  Austria  is  the  embrace  of  a  corpse,  breathing 
from  her  corrupting  lips  a  breath  that  turns  her  lover  into 
stone.  I  am  a  Rheinlander,  praise  be  to  God !  Yes,  from 
the  free  Rhein  stream  am  I." 

His  jungle  of  black  hair  was,  to  Rentzdorf 's  half -amazed, 
half -amused  survey,  full  of  twisting  adders;  yet  he  felt  no 
indignation  at  Beethoven's  outburst.  Austrian  as  he  was, 
he  regarded  men  like  Ferdinand  II.,  the  murderer  of  Wallen- 
stein,  and  Leopold  I.,  the  murderer  of  the  Hungarians,  as 
a  cultured  liberal  Englishman  might  regard  Henry  VIII., 
the  murderer  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  or  James  II.,  the  insti- 
gator of  the  Bloody  Assize. 

Gesticulating,  Beethoven  started  afresh. 


Viennese  Poet  and  Viennese  Composer  405 

"Those  who  envy  me,  traduce  me.  To-night,  in  the 
night  of  Germany's  honour,  rising  in  insolent  might,  they 
would  tread  me  down.  Triumphant  slaves  shout  round 
the  triumphant  robber.  0  my  soul  answer  them  not! 
To  their  fury,  oppose  calm!  Blind  hate,  blind  chance — 
that  is  the  world.  'It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to 
receive?'  Daily  I  live  that  maxim.  Long  was  I  in 
doubt;  but  no  longer  am  I  in  doubt.  I  have  fought  in 
trust,  in  affection  for  all  the  human  kindreds — for  all 
of  them,  all!  Evil-entreated,  I  have  sung  goodness;  in 
misery  I  have  proclaimed  joy.  How  has  Austria  requited 
me?  Poverty,  hideous  daily  penury,  and  poverty.  I  wait 
for  the  darkness,  I  creep  out  by  night,  because  my  coat  is 
threadbare  and  my  boots  patched  so  that  I  cannot  face 
my  fellowmen  in  the  sunlight.  What  slaves  were  Haydn, 
Mozart,  to  sell  their  art!  To  sell  that — it  is  to  sell 
God!  Oh,  the  vileness!  Comfort?  Riches  by  playing  the 
lackey?  I  trample  on  it,  shuddering  with  disgust  at  what 
I  must  trample  on !  No ;  I  will  never  give  in,  never,  never, 
never,  never!" 

His  emotion  seemed  to  shake  the  room.  The  thick 
finger-tips  of  his  left  hand  tapped  the  marble  table  con- 
vulsively; but  his  countenance  was  iron,  and  dun  as  iron 
the  features. 

With  an  indomitable  look  and  gesture — defiance,  male- 
diction, grief,  regret,  scorn — he  continued: 

"Bonaparte's  treason — there  is  the  cause.  He  had  the 
chance :  breathless  the  human  race  waited.  The  star  that 
burned  above  Corsica,  a  balefire  to  tyrants,  but  to  us,  the 
star  of  our  hope, — and  what  radiance  over  France !  What 
music  I  heard,  what  paeans,  what  mournful  exultant  dirges 
over  dead  heroes,  fallen,  fallen,  yet  victorious!  Bonaparte! 
If  I  forget  him,  may  my  right  hand  forget!  In  the  mid- 
night of  my  heart  his  strength  strengthened  me.  Fight  on, 
fight,  fight,  fight!  Heroic  battle,  heroic  joy,  heroic  glory, 


406  Schonbrunn 

heroic  pain.  I  remember;  I  remember.  He  came  to 
strike  down  my  strong  enemies — fear,  doubt,  madness,  and 
despair  within  me;  oppression  and  wrong  outside  me.  He 
came  to  break  all  our  fetters,  to  bring  comfort  to  those  that 
were  in  prison.  He  came,  the  light-bringer,  the  asserter  of 
glory,  proclaimer  of  equality,  brotherhood,  the  everlasting 
freedom  and  greatness  of  man.  Glory  to  man  in  the 
highest !  What  a  lightness !  0  those  dawns !  '  France  and 
Bonaparte!';  that  was  our  watchword — 'France  and 
Bonaparte!'  At  Arcola,  Rivoli,  Lodi,  Marengo,  the  priests 
and  the  despots  of  the  world  trembled  as  at  the  earth- 
quake's tread.  0  God,  how  he  is  fallen,  fallen!" 

In  Beethoven's  own  history — that  erebus  pit  of  disease, 
mortifications,  ceaseless  combat,  unsurrendering  independ- 
ence, anger  at  the  prosperity  of  wrong — in  the  desperate 
crises  of  the  years  when,  his  deafness  irremediable,  he  stood 
on  the  brink  of  madness  or  suicide,  he  had  in  Bona- 
parte's victories  found  an  inspiration  to  his  own  struggle, 
and  the  conflict  and  the  gratitude  had  become  the  Eroica. 

Uvarow,  very  pale,  his  thin  Slav  volubility  silenced,  his 
little  moustaches  twirling  upwards,  his  mouth  a  little  open, 
yet  most  intent,  sat  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  Beethoven. 

"But  I  will  tell  you,  Heinrich,"  the  latter  went  on. 
"To  you  I  will  speak.  I  have  been  thinking  of  it  much. 
What  have  I  to  do  but  think?  Well?  What?  Macbeth  — 
I  have  been  composing  it.  These  three  weeks,  these  three 
months,  it  is  the  thought  of  my  thought.  Macbeth — what 
is  it?  It  is  Bonaparte;  but  to  me  Bonaparte  is  more 
appalling.  What  is  Shakespeare's  theme,  eh?  A  loyal 
soldier,  brave  amongst  the  brave,  is  in  an  hour  made  a 
treacherous,  damnable,  midnight  assassin.  How?  Shakes- 
peare answers,  'The  witches,  the  blasted  heath.  They 
start  the  evil  thing  in  Macbeth.'  But  in  Napoleon — 
what  set  going  the  evil  in  him?  Who  was  the  tempter? 
mystery;  murder  on  murder,  D'Enghien,  the 


Viennese  Poet  and  Viennese  Composer  407 

noble  Pichegru,  conqueror  of  Holland;  the  Englishman 
Wright;  Villeneuve  with  his  gashed  throat;  Palm;  Palafox, 
— so  this  new  Macbeth  rushes  on  his  career  of  blood;  and  so 
on,  on  to  the  abyss,  to  the  abyss!  But  I  have  the  sketches 
here " 

He  rummaged  in  the  huge  pockets  of  his  rough  coat  made 
of  tanned  sheepskin.  He  found  many  things,  thrusting 
some  back  again,  depositing  others  on  the  table — an  old 
empty  snuff-box,  a  piece  of  cheese,  a  broken  shoebuckle, 
some  coins  wrapped  in  paper,  three  or  four  pencils  with 
used-up,  flattened  points. 

' '  I  lose  everything  nowadays ;  mislay  everything.  Every- 
where I  am  robbed.  I  have  changed  my  lodgings  seven 
times.  Everywhere  slothful  or  thieving  servants;  dis- 
honesty, cheating " 

"Do  not  bother,  Ludwig;  I  know  what  you  can  make  of 
such  a  subject. " 

Beethoven,  startled  by  something  in  Rentzdorf  s  voice, 
for,  deaf  as  he  was,  he  had  an  amazing  power  of  detecting 
an  accent,  the  naunce  of  a  tone — he  seemed  indeed  to  hear 
tones  only — stopped  in  his  search  and  looked  up  quickly. 

"You  do  not  like  my  comparison?  My  plan  for  a 
Macbeth-Napoleon  opera  does  not  please  you?  Hein?" 

Rentzdorf  was  nonplussed  for  a  second.  Aloof  from  most 
men,  he  rarely  contradicted  their  theories  or  criticized  their 
works.  But  with  Beethoven  he  was  sincere. 

' '  Doch,  Heinrich  ? ' '  the  composer  insisted.  "  Ja  ?  Speak 
then." 

"Well,"  Rentzdorf  said  with  a  laugh,  "are  they  so  cer- 
tain, those  murders?  And  is  it  Napoleon  who  has  changed, 
or  we  ourselves,  Ludwig;  you  and  I?  For  instance,  was 
he  so  bound  to  be  our  leader?  And  he,  our  fate-appointed 
leader,  so-called — what  right  had  we  to  demand  that  he 
should  lead  us  whither  we  desired  to  go?  And  that  limited, 
noble,  patriotic  Napoleon  that  you  desiderate — is  the  loss 


408  Schonbrunn 

to  be  so  regretted?  The  man  of  Corsica  he  gave  us  in 
his  debate  with  Paoli.  We  have  dozens  such  in  Hungary, 
in  Poland,  in  Ireland,  in  Bosnia.  The  man  of  France  he 
gave  us.  We  have  dozens  such  again — Moreau,  Washing- 
ton, Kteber,  Hoche.  But  the  Man  of  Destiny?" 

Rentzdorf  then  hinted  that  in  Napoleon  there  might  be  a 
fate  incomparably  more  tragic  and  mysterious  than  that  of 
the  stage-prophecyings,  witches,  blasted  heaths,  and  air- 
drawn  daggers  of  Macbeth;  a  tragedy  in  which  glimpses  of 
the  world-tragedy,  avant-couriers  of  the  world-doom,  might 
appear. 

"Here  on  this  earth,  and  out  there  amongst  the  star- 
galaxies,  a  God  is  in  conflict ;  out  there  as  here  a  God  works, 
moving  in  and  through  this  suffering  universe  to  an  end  be- 
yond itself  and  beyond  Himself — to  an  end  in  which  all 
this  strife,  this  rage  and  ecstasy  and  anguish  that  is  Being's 
essence  and  Being's  God  shall  cease  or  be  transformed. 
The  Nirvana  not  of  man  but  of  God.  That  is  Destiny. 
That  is  Reality." 

"Total  Annihilation?"  Uvarow  said.  "This  universe 
and  its  originator  self -destroyed  together?  That  is  very 
complete. " 

Rentzdorf  did  not  answer,  but  still  addressing  Beethoven: 

"The  nearer  a  religion,  a  philosophy,  or  a  poem  or  a 
symphony  approaches  to  the  tragic  will  which  underlies  the 
worlds,  the  more  supreme  is  that  symphony  or  that  book. 
That  is  the  great  '  ought '  of  art — your  art — and  mine — the 
only  'ought.'  If  you  and  I  have  been  alone  hitherto " 

He  stopped,  half  irritated  with  Beethoven,  half  irritated 
with  himself  at  speaking  thus  openly. 

Beethoven,  who  had  not  heard  Uvarow's  exclamation, 
said  sharply: 

"But  why  do  you  stop ?  You  said , ' If  you  and  I  have  been 
alone  hitherto — '  What  were  you  about  to  add?" 

"This  perhaps,"  Rentzdorf  said.     "Bonaparte  may  be 


Viennese  Poet  and  Viennese  Composer  409 

of  our  company — that  is  all;  his  disillusion  your  disillusion; 
his  despair  your  despair  and  mine.  Who  knows?  At 
Arcola  he  too  doubtless  thrilled  to  our  ardours,  wished 
to  be  the  eastern  star  to  a  new  earth.  Who  knows?  Now, 
he  goes  his  wild  road,  certain  only  of  the  black  nothingness 
over  which  this  planet  is  swung,  certain  of  the  world-doom, 
certain  above  all  of  his  own  doom." 

"Napoleon  a  tragic  disillusioned  "  Uvarow  exclaimed. 
"That  is  novel." 

Beethoven  for  a  considerable  time  said  nothing.  His 
brow  was  heavily  lined  and  he  was  evidently  pondering 
Rentzdorf's  words  and  their  undermeaning.  Then,  speak- 
ing so  loud  that  even  amid  the  hurly-burly  the"guests  at  the 
nearer  tables  turned  and  stared  through  the  glass  door 
curiously  and,  exchanging  a  word,  went  on  with  their  card- 
playing  or  their  drinking: 

"I  only  half  understand  you,  Heinrich.  The  will  of 
God — we  must  submit  to  that  will.  He  knows  what  is  best 
for  us.  I  cling  to  that  faith,  Heinrich — a  just  and  personal 
God,  divine  retribution."  And  with  a  blow  on  the  table 
and  a  fierce  glance — "  Ja  I  believe  in  the  goodness  of  man, 
the  goodness  of  God,  and  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul." 

"Who  asks  you  to  believe  in  anything  else,  Ludwig?" 

"You  do.  Your  writings,  your  poems,  your  dramas — I 
have  been  reading  them. " 

Rentzdorf  smiled  in  ironic  expostulation. 

"That  was  great  waste  of  time,  Ludwig;  but  you  will  get 
over  the  bad  effects,  I  daresay.  Certainly  I  am  the  last 
man  on  earth  to  wish  to  interfere  with  any  man's  religion." 

Instantly  Rentzdorf  regretted  his  impatience. 

His  annoyance  was  the  annoyance  with  an  imperfect, 
"tied"  thing,  with  this  man,  a  work  of  nature,  as  with  a 
work  of  art  in  which  the  Beauty  is  not  free  but  still  im- 
prisoned. For  why  should  this  man,  whose  music  seemed 
the  express  image  in  sound  of  the  most  daring  soul-motives, 


Schonbrunn 


emotion-ideas  of  his  own  Prometheus,  sit  here  and  talk  like  a 
Vienna  shop-keeper  in  his  Sunday  coat? 

But  Beethoven  was  again  fumbling  in  his  huge  pockets. 
This  time  he  discovered  what  he  wanted  and  banging  an 
iron-clasped  note-book  on  the  table,  he  hurriedly  turned 
the  leaves;  and  keeping  it  away  from  Uvarow's  inspection, 
for  he  was  always  suspicious  of  strangers,  he  said: 

'  '  Look  at  this.     What  do  you  think  ?     Ha  ?  " 

There  was  the  most  eager  expectancy  in  the  dark  luminous 
eyes. 

It  was  not  his  Macbeth  sketches  ;  it  was  his  Egmont  over- 
ture, rough  and  in  germ  still,  but  to  Rentzdorf's  scrutiny 
already  visibly  announcing  the  colossal  might  and  splendour 
that  were  to  come. 

"This  is  tragedy;  this  is  heroism.  You  understand  me 
here,  Ludwig  —  not  half  but  whole.  This  is  tragedy,  a 
trumpet-call  to  the  things  which  matter,  challenging  the 
soul.  This  is  heroism.  " 

"Ach  —  was  sagt  der  Schalk?    See  how  he  flatters  me!" 


Uvarow  looked  around  him.  It  was  near  midnight.  In 
the  cafe  the  excitement  had  become  more  uproarious .  News 
had  kept  arriving  hour  by  hour,  news  from  Linz,  news  from 
Brunn,  of  the  movements  of  Davout's  troops;  news  from 
Znaim.  Napoleon,  it  was  reported,  had  already  left 
Schonbrunn.  The  Emperor  Francis  was  on  his  way  from 
Altenburg.  From  every  street  there  seemed  to  come  a 
rumour  in  the  darkness  of  great  bodies  of  men  on  the  march. 

Part  of  the  floor  had  been  cleared  and  dancing  had  begun. 
From  the  faces  of  the  men  Uvarow  turned  to  the  women, 
comparing  them  with  those  whom,  on  a  similar  night,  he 
would  have  seen  in  a  Petersburg  cafe.  These  foreign  shapes 
seemed  more  elegant;  their  strange  eyes,  strange  language, 
piqued  the  curiosity  of  youth. 


Viennese  Poet  and  Viennese  Composer  411 

Suddenly  his  glance,  which  had  wandered  from  figure  to 
figure,  comely  matrons,  Slav  brunettes  or  slim  blonde- 
haired  German  maidens,  came  to  a  pause,  arrested  by  a 
bizarre  apparition.  This  was  a  girl  of  seventeen  or  eighteen 
robed  in  scarlet,  with  a  large  white  hat,  with  clustering 
feathers,  and  holding  a  long  white  wand.  Her  features  ex- 
pressed great  softness,  every  motion  of  her  figure,  seduction. 
Men's  eyes  as  they  watched  her  were  filmed  as  with 
smoke. 

The  tziganes  played  on;  the  dancers  came  out  of  the  circle 
wiping  their  foreheads. 

' '  To  the  victors  the  spoils ! ' '  thought  the  Russian.  ' '  And 
the  vanquished  are  the  dead;  the  victors  those  who  live, 
and  their  chief  prize  a  woman's  waist — those  who  have 
the  will  or  the  strength  to  clasp  it." 

A  burst  of  ribald  laughter  at  a  table  near  him  ended  in 
the  Buda  students'  refrain,  chanted  by  a  dozen  voices  and 
accompanied  speedily  by  the  tziganes  and  by  knots  of  young 
men  everywhere  about  the  huge  room : 

"Nolo  me  mortuum,  nolo  me  mortmain; 
Nolo  me  mortuum  basiaret!" 

"Hierbin  ich  Mensch!"  Uvarow  thought,  and,  chame- 
leon-like, taking  on  Faust's  colour,  he  turned  to  Beethoven. 
"Hier  bin  ich  Mensch,"  he  repeated  aloud,  "hier  darf  ich 
sein!" 

Beethoven  smiled  agreeably. 

He  too,  whilst  Rentzdorf  looked  at  the  score,  was  watch- 
ing the  scene,  nodding  his  head  to  the  tzigane  tune;  and,  as 
his  eyes  travelled  from  group  to  group — the  drinkers,  the 
twining  figures  of  the  dancers  through  the  smoke-dimmed 
air,  the  youthful  flushed  faces,  the  go  and  come  of  the 
tziganes'  elbows,  the  women's  figures — the  scene  had 
provoked  something  of  the  temper  of  the  Dionysos  Sym- 
phony for  which  he  left  merely  notes. 


412  Schonbrunn 

Thus  midnight  crept  past.     A  new  day  was  born. 

"You  are  leaving  us?"  the  Russian  exclaimed. 

Rentzdorf  had  risen. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  and  in  a  lower  voice  added,  "but  you 
need  not  come  with  me.  Stay  and  get  better  acquainted 
with  Beethoven." 

The  latter  looked  as  if  he  wished  to  accompany  his  friend, 
but  Rentzdorf  by  a  few  words  in  the  Viennese  patois  iterated 
Uvarow's  anxiety  to  talk  with  him. 

Rentzdorf  himself  wished  to  be  alone. 

An  unconquerable  desire  even  at  this  hour  had  seized 
him,  if  not  to  see  Amalie  at  least  to  see  the  windows  behind 
which  she  lay. 


CHAPTER  XV 

SO   STIRBT   EIN   HELD!" 


IVTAPOLEON'S  decision  in  the  Staps  case  had  been 
+  ^  communicated  to  General  Lanier,  the  temporary 
commandant  of  the  arsenal,  at  seven  o'clock  on  Saturday 
evening. 

The  instructions  were  explicit.  The  prisoner  was  to  be 
shot  within  the  arsenal  before  daybreak  on  the  I5th,  at 
a  place  selected  by  the  due  de  Rovigo.  The  Emperor's 
words  were  "avant  le  point  du  jour. "  This  phrase  Savary 
translated  into  5.30  A.M.  adding  the  following  details, — at 
five  o'clock  two  of  the  slabs  which  paved  the  "Watch- 
tower"  court  were  to  be  raised,  a  grave  six  feet  long,  seven 
deep,  and  three  wide  was  to  be  dug;  a  stout  pole  was  to  be 
thrust  into  the  ground  not  more  than  two  feet  from  the  edge 
of  the  grave;  the  prisoner  was  to  be  bound  to  this  pole, 
shot,  and  at  once  buried.  All  blood-stains  were  to  be 
carefully  removed,  and  every  trace  of  the  moving  of  the 
slabs  obliterated. 

The  depth  of  the  grave,  Savary  calculated,  would  be  an 
added  security  against  the  discovery  of  the  remains  by  the 
Austrians  when  the  arsenal  and  Vienna  itself  were  finally 
evacuated  by  the  French. 

The  prisoner  was  to  be  allowed  neither  priest  nor  con- 
fessor, no  minister  of  religion  of  any  kind.  Writing  mate- 
rials, however,  were  to  be  offered  him,  and  if  he  made  use  of 

413 


414  Schonbrunn 

them  or  left  any  testamentary  or  written  statements  upon 
any  subject  whatever,  such  papers  were  to  be  delivered 
without  delay  to  the  due  de  Rovigo;  if,  moreover,  the 
prisoner  made  any  verbal  statement  this  also  was  to  be 
communicated  to  the  due  de  Rovigo. 

Savary,  like  Bonaparte  himself,  still  adhered  to  the 
theory  that  the  Tugendbund  was  implicated  in  the  young 
Thuringian's  desperate  attempt.  The  pens,  ink,  and  paper 
were  placed  at  his  disposal  as  an  opportunity  or  an  incite- 
ment to  betray  his  confederates. 

A  strong  guard  had  been  set  on  Friday  round  that  part 
of  the  arsenal  in  which  the  prisoner  was  confined.  During 
that  night  and  all  Saturday  he  had  been  under  surveillance 
in  his  cell;  he  had  been  observed  seated  on  the  edge  of  his 
plank  bed,  or  walking  up  and  down,  gesticulating  silently 
or  staring  up  at  the  single  small  square  window.  Some- 
times he  would  sigh  heavily  or  mutter  to  himself  in 
a  melancholy  or  dejected  manner.  He  had,  of  course, 
eaten  nothing.  The  offer  of  writing  materials  he  had 
gladly  accepted.  Once  he  had  been  seen  to  kneel  and  pray; 
then,  rising,  he  had  seized  the  pen  and  paper  and  for 
a  considerable  period  written  rapidly.  The  papers  were 
seized,  but  their  contents  revealed  nothing.  They  con- 
sisted of  incoherent  words,  fragments  of  lofty  eloquence, 
or  patriotic  poetry,  a  prayer  for  Germany,  part  of  a  letter 
to  Goethe,  full  of  vehement  reproaches,  an  apostrophe  to 
his  great  dead  friend,  Friedrich  Schiller. 

By  Savary's  orders  this  personal  surveillance  was  on  the 
night  of  the  I4th  relaxed,  and  at  ten  o'clock  altogether 
suspended.  Friedrich  Staps  thus  passed  his  last  night  on 
earth  unscanned  and  unwatched  by  his  enemies'  eyes. 

II 

Punctually  at  five  o'clock  on  Sunday  morning  a  bugle 
call,  a  short  note  followed  by  a  longer  holding  note,  startled 


"So  Stirbt  Ein  Held!"  415 

every  hearer  who  at  that  dreary  hour  was  awake  in  the 
streets  or  houses  adjoining  the  arsenal.  And  everyone  who 
heard  that  mournful  summons  started  up  or  lay  listening. 
What  could  that  mournful  sound  portend?  Was  it  an 
actual  bugle-call  or  merely  the  prolongation  of  a  dream? 

The  bugle  announced  to  the  grenadiers  composing  the 
arsenal  guard  that  the  fusiliers  of  the  I2th  regiment  had 
arrived  at  the  place  selected  by  Savary  and  had  begun  their 
part  in  the  drama. 

Four  minutes  later,  Sergeant  Picquart,  accompanied  by 
ten  grenadiers  of  the  arsenal  guard,  approached  the  senti- 
nels posted  by  the  door  of  Staps's  cell.  After  a  parley  the 
sergeant  was  admitted ;  and  the  gaoler,  placing  a  lantern  on 
the  floor,  withdrew. 

Picquart  at  first  could  scarcely  detect  the  prisoner,  but 
the  sound  of  his  breathing  came  to  him,  now  fitful,  now 
regular. 

Then  he  saw  Staps. 

He  was  fast  asleep,  stretched  out  on  his  plank  bed,  half 
undressed,  his  cheek  on  his  right  hand,  his  left  hand  hanging 
by  his  side.  A  rusty  chain  attached  his  right  foot  to  an 
iron  staple  morticed  into  the  wall  which  was  here  of  great 
thickness. 

The  sergeant  stood  for  several  seconds  looking  at  the 
prisoner.  A  flush  that  might  have  been  fever  but  might 
also  have  been  youth  and  healthy  sleep  was  on  the  boy's 
face;  the  neck  and  throat  were  white  and  had  in  their  soft 
outlines  something  womanish.  The  chin  was  bold  and 
finely  moulded. 

"It  is  German,  that  face,"  thought  the  sergeant,  "we  do 
not  grow  such  features  west  of  the  Rhine." 

He  approached  the  bed  and  was  about  to  lay  his  hand 
on  Staps's  shoulder  when  the  latter,  turning  on  his  back, 
murmured  drowsily: 

"It  cannot  be  time  to  get  up  yet,  Marie?     It  is  too  dark 


416  Schonbrunn 

and  cold.  Go  away!  This  is  Sunday  .  .  .  Ah,  who  are 
you?" 

His  eyes,  wide  open,  sparkling  and  very  blue,  stared  at 
the  grenadier.  He  had  not  slept  until  two;  he  had  then 
fallen  into  a  broken  slumber  harassed  by  fearful  dreams; 
but  about  four,  this  slumber  had  become  a  deep  and  restful 
sleep.  In  his  dreams  he  was  a  child  again  in  his  Thuringian 
home,  and  Marie,  his  mother's  old  servant,  had  come  to 
wake  him  and  had  come  too  soon.  But  at  the  clank  of  his 
chains  and  the  rustle  of  the  straw  a  panic  fear  blanched 
his  features. 

"You  must  get  up  and  put  on  your  coat,"  the  sergeant 
said  to  him  curtly,  "and  at  once." 

"For  what?"  the  boy  asked  in  his  imperfect  French. 

"For  what?  A  breakfast  of  lead.  Come!  Despatch! 
Your  day's  work  is  soon  over." 

The  next  instant  Staps  was  on  his  feet. 

"I  am  ready." 

But  he  staggered  and  would  have  fallen;  but  steadying 
himself  he  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  his  bed.  His  head  was 
giddy;  his  fingers  chilled  to  the  bone;  his  brow  hot;  and 
horrible  quiverings  shook  his  body. 

"I  am  very  cold.  Has  there  been  a  frost?"  he  asked  in 
an  indifferent  voice,  though  his  teeth  clashed  against  each 
other. 

"A  few  yards'  walk  will  put  that  all  right,"  was  the  gruff 
answer.  "Come!  Get  into  your  coat  and  boots.  It  is 
time  to  start — unless  ..." 

The  notion  had  struck  the  sergeant  that  in  a  few  minutes 
the  prisoner  would  be  dead,  and  that  a  dead  man's  boots 
were  always  difficult  to  remove. 

Staps  as  he  stopped  to  fasten  his  shoes  noticed  that  they 
were  muddy.  His  mind  became  confused.  Why  had  Marie 
forgotten  to  clean  them?  His  fingers  fumbled  at  the  strings 
helplessly,  blindly;  and  all  the  time,  he  seemed  to  hear  a 


"So  Stirbt  Ein  Held!"  417 

continuous  deep  sighing  somewhere  around  him  or  within 
him. 

' '  I  am  doing  this  for  the  last  time.  This  morning  I  have 
to  die." 

The  time  for  heroic  action  was  past;  the  time  for  heroic 
suffering  had  come.  And,  at  the  word,  he  knew  what  that 
trembling  was.  It  was  the  revulsion  of  his  youth's  forces, 
baulked  of  their  joy,  against  this  hideous  annihilation,  here 
in  life's  morning,  by  death.  And  a  panic  terror  descended 
on  him.  He  was  conscious  of  the  impulse  to  scream  out,  to 
implore  his  judges  to  spare  him  for  one  day,  for  half  a  day, 
even  for  an  hour,  till  he  saw  the  sun  rise  again. 

"Ah,  it  is  useless,"  he  muttered,  "useless  ...  I  have 
to  go  through  with  it.  I  have  to  be  brave.  Aid  me,  oh 
God,  aid  me!  What  do  I  do  next?  Ah,  my  coat — yes;  I 
am  ready,  ready.  Have  we  far  to  go?" 

"Not  very." 

But  after  these  two  sinister  words  the  sergeant's  manner 
changed.  The  spectacle  of  this  child's  courage  and  of  his 
fears — for  Staps  seemed  to  him  younger  than  the  youngest 
conscript  of  even  that  horrible  year — had  affected  him  with 
an  unaccustomed  emotion.  He  went  to  the  prison  door  and 
looked  out. 

"Sit  down, "  he  then  said  with  gruff  kindness.  "There's 
not  a  hint  of  daylight  in  the  sky.  I'll  leave  you  to  yourself 
a  bit." 

He  himself  was  indifferent  to  religion;  but  this  German 
boy,  he  reasoned,  might  he  not  wish  to  pray  before  death? 

in 

Left  alone,  Staps  remained  seated  on  the  bed. 

"To  die  .  .  .  ?" 

He  began  to  wring  his  hands,  yet  taunting  himself  with 
his  own  weakness.  "  It  is  for  Germany, "  he  repeated,  and 
he  strove  to  invest  that  name  with  its  glory.  But  like  a 
27 


Schonbrunn 


deceitful  halo  the  glory  had  gone.  The  hero  forms  of 
poetry  or  history,  Siegfried  and  Arminius,  that  he  had 
imagined  seated  above  their  sepulchres  in  colossal  gloom 
brooding  Germany's  wrongs,  no  longer  rose  at  his  summons. 
The  maxims  and  verses  which  had  sustained  his  enthusiasm 
sounded  no  longer  in  his  ears. 

"My  book?"  he  suddenly  thought.  Where  was  his 
Schiller? 

A  shudder  of  despair  ran  over  him.  He  had  left  it  at  the 
inn  in  Nussdorf.  On  Friday  morning  as  he  started  for 
Schonbrunn  he  had  thrust  it  into  his  pocket  as  usual; 
but  it  had  encumbered  his  walk,  for  the  dagger  was  in  its 
place. 

He  looked  around,  bewildered  by  this  new  calamity. 

Schiller's  Joan  d'Arc?  It  had  been  his  final  inspiration. 
Without  it  he  had  not  the  strength  to  die. 

And  in  that  midnight  of  the  soul  a  strange  vision  came  to 
him.  He  saw  his  dead  mother's  face,  and  she  was  looking 
out  into  the  wet,  windy  darkness.  "What  is  she  looking  for?" 
he  asked  himself  with  a  tremor.  She  disappeared.  The 
faces  of  young  girls  drawn  up  in  a  semi-circle  now  rose  with 
the  same  hallucinatory  clearness.  They  were  singing  in 
chorus.  His  own  beloved  was  amongst  them.  But  some- 
thing hard  and  hateful  at  once  insulated  him  from  her  and 
from  them.  In  the  uncertainty  and  inner  war  of  spirit  at 
Erfurt,  she  had  not  only  been  of  no  aid;  she  had  acted 
the  part  of  traitress  and  spy.  She  was  gentle;  had  great 
modesty;  yet  at  the  first  hint  of  his  heroic  purpose  she  had 
taken  fright  —  obeyed  her  mother. 

But  his  own  mother? 

He  felt  the  ice  of  a  supernatural  awe  on  his  face.  In  the 
unseen  spirit-  world  it  was  for  him  she  was  waiting;  it  was 
for  his  coming  she  was  looking  out  as  in  his  Naumberg 
home  she  had  on  Saturday  evenings  looked  out  for  his  re- 
turn through  the  dusk  from  Erfurt. 


"So  Stirbt  Ein  Held!"  419 


"Ah,  God.  .  .  .     This  it  is;  this  it  is." 

He  flung  himself  on  his  knees  and  began  to  pray. 

There  came  the  tramp  of  footsteps,  the  clang  of  arms, 
and,  turning,  Staps  saw  in  the  grey  light  the  sergeant,  and 
behind  him  the  shakos  and  bayonet-points  of  the  escort. 

"You  are  ready?  It's  time  we  set  out  now.  Why, 
what's  this?  Courage,  my  lad,  courage!  It's  little  you 
lose  by  dying  young. " 

With  a  roughness  that  was  intended  to  paralyse  his 
own  feelings  and  to  hearten  the  prisoner  he  began  to  give 
orders,  accompanying  them  with  a  series  of  oaths  and  ex- 
hortations. "Remember,  you'll  feel  no  pain;  not  a  twinge. 
I've  had  a  bullet  through  me  often  enough;  you  don't  even 
know  it  at  the  time,  though  it's  Hell  afterwards.  But 
you'll  have  no  afterwards.  D'ye  see?  And  mind  you 
don't  wriggle  your  head  about  like  this,"  he  explained, 
moving  his  head  quickly  from  side  to  side.  "That  makes 
the  fellows  nervous,  and  a  bullet  might  smash  your  shoulder 
that  ought  to  have  gone  through  your  brain  or  your  heart. 
Then  it's  all  to  begin  over  again.  But  six  bullets  at  six 


paces 


Suddenly  the  sergeant  averted  his  eyes.  The  surprise 
and  the  fearful  candour  in  the  boy's  glance  were  more  than 
he  could  stand. 

' '  Quick !     March ! "  he  shouted. 

Staps  was  under  the  open  sky.  The  shakos  and  bayonets 
instantly  closed  him  in;  and  beyond  them  he  saw  only  the 
dull  iron-hued  heavily  buttressed  walls. 

"Right  wheel ! "  the  sergeant  said  angrily;  for  his  men  had 
started  for  the  exit.  ' '  Thousand  devils !  Right  wheel ! ' ' 

Staps  kicked  his  heel  against  the  ground,  attempting  to 
thrust  his  foot  better  into  the  shoe ;  and  feeling  the  fog  in 
his  throat  he  asked  to  have  his  coat  buttoned.  His  chest 
had  always  been  weak.  But  the  grenadiers  did  not  under- 
stand him,  and,  with  a  sudden  reflection  he  muttered  to 


420  Schonbrunn 

himself,  "Ah,  my  God!  What  does  it  matter?  The  dead 
do  not  catch  cold." 

They  were  now  passing  the  court-house  in  which  he  had 
been  tried  yesterday.  In  one  of  the  escort  he  recognized, 
by  a  scar  above  the  right  eyebrow,  a  grenadier  who  had  been 
on  guard  there. 

"Es  soil  ein  Wort  sein, "  he  thought  with  sudden  illumin- 
ation, and  in  an  instant  the  scene  of  his  trial  stood  out 
before  him. 

And  repeating  again  like  an  incantation  the  phrase  long 
afterwards  famous  in  the  German  war  of  liberation  and,  in 
1813,  at  the  battle  of  the  Nations,  "Es  soil  ein  Wort  sein" — 
there  shall  arise  a  word — he  imagined  again  the  incident  of 
which  it  formed  a  part.  Savary,  proud  of  the  opportunity 
of  displaying  in  the  presence  of  soldiers  his  own  knowledge 
of  legal  customs,  had,  throughout  the  trial,  assumed  the 
part  of  a  juge  cT 'instruction,  and  hurled  reproaches  and  in- 
sults at  his  prisoner, — "You  are  a  nobody;  egged  on  by 
others  to  this  cowardly  and  heinous  act.  Your  very  name 
is  an  absurdity.  Who  are  those  others?  The  Emperor 
knows  how  to  reward  repentance  even  at  the  eleventh  hour." 

"  If  I  were  a  coward  or  a  common  man, "  Staps  had  cried, 
"how  could  I  have  conceived  and  executed  this  thing?  My 
name  may  be  ridiculous,  but  my  deed  is  glorious  for  ever. 
It  will  burst  exultant  from  my  grave,  and  burn  in  front  of 
the  Army  of  Liberation.  You  may  fire  a  thousand  cannon ; 
the  youth  of  Germany  has  not  made  peace  with  you." 

Yes;  he  knew  it  now.  There  were  prophecyings  in  the 
air;  his  would  be  the  word  that  would  arise,  his  name  death- 
less as  Napoleon's. 

"Halt!" 

All  stood  still.  Dazedly  Staps  looked  around.  He  saw 
that  he  was  in  a  narrow  roofed-in  passage.  Was  it  here? 
Were  they  about  to  murder  him  in  this  hole?" 

Instinctively  he  started  forward,  struggling  to  speak;  but 


"So  Stirbt  Ein  Held!"  421 

at  the  same  instant  two  bayonets  were  at  his  breast;  his 
arm  was  seized  in  a  vice  by  one  of  the  grenadiers. 

"Do  not  stir  or  speak  or  you  are  a  dead  man." 

The  cause  of  the  delay  was  simple.  Moved  by  a  humane 
feeling,  sergeant  Picquart  had  sent  forward  a  grenadier  to 
ascertain  whether  the  preparations  in  the  courtyard  were 
completed.  He  did  not  wish  "the  boy"  to  stand  by  whilst 
his  grave  was  being  dug. 

The  grenadier  returned. 

"Quick!     March!" 

In  less  than  two  minutes  Staps  saw  in  front  of  him  a  wide 
open  court,  and  low  down  in  the  west  a  few  stars  struggling 
against  the  rapid  onrush  of  the  dawn.  A  vast  pallor  full 
of  mysteriousness  flooded  the  east;  but  in  the  west  and 
south  the  stars  were  still  visible.  He  recognized  Orion,  his 
baldric  a  glittering  gem.  Close  behind  the  low  wall  he  saw 
two  or  three  wretched  trees.  Their  leaves  had  been  blown 
into  the  court  and  lay  in  withering  heaps.  In  the  same 
direction  but  on  this  side  of  the  wall  and  well  within  it, 
several  torches  blazed.  One  torch  half  burnt  out  was 
smoking;  another  lay  extinct  on  the  ground.  Men  had 
been  at  work  there;  implements  lay  on  the  earth,  spades, 
pick-axes,  some  pieces  of  rope.  Three  soldiers,  their 
sleeves  rolled  up  revealing  their  tanned,  hairy  arms,  were 
conversing  in  low  voices.  Beside  them  he  saw  by  the 
flare  of  the  torches  a  freshly-dug  trench.  It  was  close  to  the 
wall,  and  was  partly  screened  from  sight  by  their  figures. 

Staps  looked  at  this  trench,  at  a  pole  which  rose  beside 
it,  and  at  the  two  heaps  of  earth.  He  did  not  at  once 
understand;  but  suddenly  the  truth  flashed  on  him.  It 
was  for  him,  this  trench.  It  was  his  grave. 

IV 

At  a  considerable  distance  from  the  trench,"  six  men 
drawn  up  in  a  line  stood  watching  the  prisoner  with  interest. 


422  Schonbrunn 

Their  uniform  was  not  that  of  the  arsenal  guard,  nor  was  it 
that  of  the  grenadiers  who  had  guarded  Staps  yesterday. 

"Is  that  our  man?"  one  of  the  six  asked  his  comrade. 

"Seems  like  it,"  was  the  curt  answer. 

"That  baby?  Why,  I  was  told  it  was  Levi,  the  damned 
spy,  who  nearly  dished  us  in  Lobau. " 

"He's  a  spy  right  enough,"  a  grizzled,  beery-looking 
veteran  said  to  the  conscript.  "That's  why  his  grave's 
dug  so  deep.  When  we're  gone  he  might  'walk '  and  betray 
to  the  Austrian  sappers  our  Emperor's  plans." 

"Silence  in  the  ranks!"  exclaimed  a  well-bred  voice. 
"Silence,  or  by  God,  I'll  have  every  man  of  you  in  irons. 
Christ's  blood,  is  this  a  canteen?" 

The  speaker  was  Lieutenant  Riouffe,  a  Marseillais,  son  of 
General  Rioufle,  one  of  the  five  hundred  who  in  July  '92  had 
made  the  famous  march. 

Rioufle  had  drunk  too  much  the  night  before;  he  had 
staked  rashly  at  faro  and  lost ;  he  was  leaving  a  mistress  of 
whom  he  was  not  yet  tired,  a  Slovak  girl  only  sixteen  years 
old  with  beautiful  round  eyebrows;  he  had  not  had  more 
than  two  hours'  sleep;  the  smoke  from  the  torches  stung  his 
eyes  which  were  blood-shot.  Above  all,  he  hated  this  morn- 
ing's bloody  task.  Therefore  he  blustered  and  shammed 
anger. 

Riouffe's  irritable  mood  was  also  the  cause  of  the  delay. 
The  soldiers  had  measured  the  grave  by  the  height  of  one  of 
their  own  number.  Riouffe,  who  dreaded  Savary,  wished 
to  have  it  tested,  and  there  was  neither  a  tape  nor  a  foot 
rule  to  be  found. 

Staps  understood  nothing  of  this  delay.  His  mind  was 
struggling  with  a  myriad  painful  and  dazing  thoughts.  Yet, 
he  noticed  wistfully,  the  branches  of  the  sickly  trees  were 
recovering  their  hues ;  the  uniforms,  the  epaulettes,  the  faces 
were  recovering  their  hues,  not  from  the  lanterns  now  and 
not  from  the  torchlight.  Would  he  see  the  sun  again? 


"So  Stirbt  Ein  Held!"  423 

There  was  a  shout.  A  grenadier  was  seen  hurrying 
across  the  courtyard  bearing  something  in  his  hand.  It  was 
a  tape. 

All  approached  the  grave.     A  corporal  jumped  into  it. 

An  unseen  voice  beside  Staps  whispered — "It  is  now!" 
And  resolute  his  spirit  answered  "It  is  now!" 

And  now  to  his  memory,  which  in  his  prison  cell  had 
betrayed  him  so  cruelly,  now  to  his  memory  there  came 
crowding  pell-mell  the  verses,  the  hero-maxims,  Wolfram's, 
Schiller's,  Uhland's,  Fichte's.  And  with  them  came  also 
fragments  and  echoes  of  a  remoter,  mightier  music  thrilling 
along  his  brain,  fragments  from  the  sagas  and  ancient  war- 
hymns  of  his  nation  and  his  race;  above  all,  these  words 
from  the  death-song  of  a  German  warrior: 

"The  Gods  will  welcome  me.  See!  They  are  come  to 
call  me  home — the  maidens  whom  Wotan  hath  sent  to  call 
me.  The  hours  of  my  life  are  gone  past.  Laughing  I  die." 
And  lo !  in  a  forest-hung,  shining  region,  out-splendouring 
the  noon,  Valhalla  arose,  and  the  hosts  of  Valhalla,  and 
Sigurd  turned — Sigurd  was  gazing  at  him. 

"They  are  waiting  to  see  how  I  shall  die!" 

The  thought  had  leaped  into  words  before  the  flash  which 
lit  up  his  darkening  soul  had  quivered  out  of  sight. 

"  Sigurd  the  Volsung !" 

The  name  was  like  a  sword  dividing  the  firmament. 
Unmistakably  as  at  Erfurt  in  his  hour  of  dread  spiritual 
doubt  God's  mandate  had  thundered  its  sacred  message  to 
him,  so  now  in  his  extremity  of  weakness  and  fear  that 
name  thundered  its  hero-courage  to  him. 

And  visibly  to  his  guards  and  to  the  bystanders  Staps's 
figure  seemed  to  gain  in  stature.  He  stood  more  erect; 
a  light  was  on  his  brow ;  in  his  bearing  there  was  the  uncon- 
cern which  is  born  of  the  last  valour,  passing  into  defiance 
as  his  glances  now  met  their  glances,  alone,  death-doomed 
but  undefeated. 


424  Schonbrunn 

The  corporal  of  fusiliers  had  climbed  out  of  the  grave. 
He  spoke  some  words  to  Lieutenant  Riouffe,  and  together 
the  two  came  forward. 

Staps  looked  at  the  officer;  but  the  latter,  averting  his 
eyes,  gave  an  order  to  the  grenadiers.  They  fell  back 
five  paces,  leaving  the  prisoner  alone  with  his  two  guards. 

"Germany  for  ever!  Down  with  the  oppressors!  Ger- 
many! Liberty!" 

Riouffe  started,  stood  a  second,  staring  at  the  prisoner. 

"Que  dit-il?"  he  asked  at  length. 

Staps  had  spoken  in  German,  his  native  accent  very 
marked  in  his  excitement. 

No  one  answered.  The  officer  shrugged  his  shoulders, 
and  after  a  rapid  glance  aroun  gave  a  short,  sharp  com- 
mand. 

Four  grenadiers  seized  Staps,  and  in  an  instant  jerked 
him  forward,  and  began  awkwardly  but  rapidly  to  bind  him 
hand  and  foot  to  the  pole  fixed  in  the  earth  close  to  the 
grave. 

Taken  by  surprise,  the  prisoner  at  first  offered  no  resist- 
ance; but  divining  the  object  of  this  violence,  he  began 
to  wrestle  furiously  with  his  executioners,  protesting  in 
German,  "I  can  stand  by  myself.  I  am  not  afraid  to  die. 
I  will  not  be  bound  like  a  thief.  I  will  not. "  And  again  he 
struggled  convulsively ;  and  at  the  stare  of  stupor  or  menace 
in  his  captors'  eyes,  he  cried  out  in  French, — "Je  ne  veux 
pas — "  But  he  could  not  at  once  recollect  the  word  for 
"bound."  It  came  to  him,  and  in  his  vehemence  he  used 
a  German  idiom,  "li£  e"tre,"  but  immediately  correcting 
himself  he  repeated  it,  gazing  angrily,  imploringly  into 
the  face  of  the  grenadier  with  the  scar  who  had  been  present 
at  his  trial. 

"It  will  be  better  for  yourself,"  was  the  stern  answer 
after  a  steady  look  into  the  boy's  face,  and  with  a  quick 
twist  of  the  rope  the  work  was  completed. 


"So  Stirbt  Ein  Held!"  425 

The  four  grenadiers  fell  back  to  their  places.  Staps  was 
left  alone,  bound  to  a  stake  beside  an  open  grave. 

In  that  moment  of  awful  solitude  the  essential  agony 
began.  His  grave,  black  and  deep  as  a  pit,  was  at  his  feet. 
There  in  a  second  or  two  he  would  lie  unresisting  and  still, 
and  those  two  heaps  of  earth  be  piled  above  him.  And 
the  forces  of  his  youth,  the  horrible  life-thirst,  sobbed 
and  clamoured  and  raged  in  him.  Why  was  he  to  be  shot 
down?  What  right  had  these  Frenchmen  to  murder  him? 
He  cast  an  appealing,  frightful  glance  at  their  six  faces. 
One  was  a  boy  like  himself ;  another  under  a  fierce  look  was 
hiding  the  compassion  he  dared  not  or  would  not  manifest. 
What  made  these  men  assassins — and  those  grenadiers 
that  stood  looking  on,  silent  as  those  walls?  He  felt  his 
mind  confused;  and  he  lost  his  way.  The  cords  drawn 
violently  across  his  breast  oppressed  his  breathing.  His 
throat  was  parched.  His  head  began  to  turn  from  side  to 
side,  restlessly,  feverously.  But  no  one  came  to  his  aid. 
No  one  even  noticed  his  misery.  And  the  last  loneliness 
swept  around  him,  a  most  harrowing,  stern  loneliness,  that 
of  a  world  in  which  he  saw  nothing  but  enemies,  strong  and 
implacable,  looking  hate  and  death  at  him — here  where  he 
stood,  pinioned  by  an  open  grave,  his  grave.  He  moaned, 
and  an  inward,  supreme,  fearful  struggle  began;  and  in 
that  struggle  the  boy  found  his  road,  never  to  lose  it  again. 

In  the  pause  the  balance  still  hung  between  victory 
and  despair;  but  the  immense  hush  and  the  white  glories 
of  the  dawn,  one  mystic  splendour  from  horizon  to  zenith, 
suddenly  upbore  him.  He  heard  words  and  voices  and 
singing,  the  riding  of  horses.  He  saw  again  the  hero- 
shapes,  colossal,  like  resting  clouds  or  shadowy  towers, 
waiting,  waiting,  regardful  how  he,  a  German,  should  die. 
His  loneliness  was  gone;  these  were  his  companions;  and 
vanquishing  the  sick  weight  on  his  heart,  louder  and  clearer 
than  he  knew  he  shouted  in  French: 


426  Schonbrunn 

' '  Germany !    God  and  my  Fatherland !    Germany ! ' ' 

There  was  a  brief  word  of  command,  a  swift  tramp  of  feet, 
a  rattle  of  muskets,  then  an  imperative: 

"Left  wheel!    Halt!" 

The  fusiliers  had  swung  forward.  Their  musket  barrels 
gleamed  dully  in  the  whitening  dawn.  Lieutenant  Riouffe 
now  stood  in  line  with  them.  The  corporal  took  up  a 
position  beyond  the  former  and  a  little  behind  him. 

"It  is  Now!"  thought  Staps,  with  a  shuddering  vivid- 
ness. "  It  is  indeed  Now !" 

"Attention!" 

Staps  closed  his  eyes,  but  instantly  opening  them  wide : 
"God  for  Germany!"  he  shouted,  all  his  soul  in  exultation. 
"Down  with  the  tyrant  of  the  earth!  Germany  for  ever! 
Germany!" 

"Fire!" 

When  the  muskets  were  grounded  and  the  smoke  slowly 
cleared  the  standers-by  saw  a  dead  face,  the  chin  falling  on 
the  breast,  in  the  eyes  a  ghastly  stare  of  astonishment 
and  agony;  the  shoulders  lurched  forward  straining  the 
ropes  grotesque,  ludicrous  even,  but  fast  becoming,  accord- 
ing to  the  temperament  of  the  onlookers,  unendurably 
painful,  gruesome,  or  terrifying  in  the  extreme. 

His  boyhood  in  the  Thuringian  woods,  his  ardour  for 
great  poetry  and  heroic  actions,  his  loves,  his  resentments, 
his  ambitions,  his  wrongs,  his  passion  for  freedom  and  for 
the  greatness  of  his  race — to  this  they  had  brought  him; 
here  they  all  were  ended. 


Riouffe,  the  officer  who  had  given  the  order  to  fire,  stood 
biting  his  nails,  scowling  and  muttering  to  himself.  The 
fusiliers  looked  at  each  other  in  stupid  silence ;  one  of  them, 
the  conscript,  wandering  from  the  ranks,  stood  with  bent 
head. 


"So  Stirbt  Ein  Held!"  427 

Two  soldiers  going  up  to  the  dead  boy  undid  the  cords. 
The  body  slipped  in  a  huddled  mass  to  the  ground.  Blood 
was  oozing  from  several  places  in  or  about  the  breast. 
Corporal  Boucherat,  stepping  briskly  forward,  bent  over 
Staps  and  lifted  the  left  hand — the  hand  that  but  three  days 
ago  had  lain  in  Corvisart's  so  trustfully.  It  fell  back  pulse- 
less and  unanswering  now. 

"Dead  as  a  stone,  mon  lieutenant,"  he  said  to  Riouffe. 

The  fusiliers  took  up  the  shovels  and  spades;  but  at  that 
moment  a  low  iron-clamped  door  in  the  wall  on  their  left 
opened  and  two  superior  officers  in  forage  caps  and  undress 
uniform,  accompanied  by  the  commandant,  General  Lanier, 
began  slowly  to  cross  the  courtyard. 

There  was  an  instantaneous  excitement.  Every  man 
stood  to  arms.  The  conscript  fell  again  into  the  ranks. 
"The  due  de  Rovigo  in  person !  "  he  whispered  irrepressibly. 
"Nom  de  Dieu,  and  General  Rapp  who  commanded  the 
Young  Guard  at  Aspern." 

"Shut  up!  Do  you  want  to  have  us  all  on  bread  and 
water?" 

Savary,  without  a  word  to  anyone,  went  up  to  the  trench 
and  stood  looking  down  on  the  dead.  Two  of  the  grenadiers 
approached  with  torches;  but  he  motioned  them  away. 
The  sky  was  now  full  of  light. 

Staps  lay  with  his  face  partly  turned  to  the  earth,  as 
though  he  had  fallen  forward  on  his  wounds. 

Savary  with  the  toe  of  his  boot  slightly  thrust  aside  the 
left  arm  which  half  hid  the  features ;  but  by  a  kind  of  reflex 
action  the  arm  returned  to  its  place  again. 

"Uncover  the  face!"  Savary  commanded  without  turning 
round. 

Lieutenant  Riouffe  gave  an  order  and  three  soldiers 
sprang  forward;  one  of  the  latter,  kneeling,  held  the  arm 
away  from  the  face  which  looked  up  at  Savary  with  the 
tranquil  irony  that  death  confers.  The  dead  boy  already 


428  Schonbrunn 

knew  all  or  he  knew  nothing.  His  assassin  still  moved  in  a 
world  of  appearances. 

"Enough!"  said  Savary,  turning  away,  and  in  the  same 
breath  he  added  to  Rapp,  "C'est  bien  lui.  That's  our 
man." 

At  this  moment,  not  murderous  contentment  but  the  gaze 
of  Murder  itself  seemed  to  look  from  Savary 's  sinister 
countenance;  the  reports  which  made  him  play  for  Bona- 
parte the  functions  which  the  Borgias  assigned  to  their 
private  assassins  were,  if  not  justified,  certainly  made 
intelligible. 

Rapp,  a  singular  short  stuttering  in  his  throat,  looked 
down  in  turn  on  the  death-pale  features  in  the  death-pale 
dawn;  he  looked  at  the  hands;  he  saw  the  threadbare 
clothes;  one  of  the  shoes  was  badly  fastened,  as  though  its 
wearer  had  been  interrupted  by  the  summons  to  his  doom ; 
the  sole  of  the  other  was  worn  to  the  welt.  He  must  often 
have  been  footsore,  Rapp  thought,  not  only  on  his  long 
tramp  from  Erfurt  to  Vienna,  but  on  his  journeys  to  and 
from  the  inn  to  Schonbrunn. 

"Well,  he  will  be  footsore  no  longer.  What  a  waste! 
He  had  in  him  the  stuff  that  would  have  made  a  brave  man. 
What  a  waste!" 

Staps's  bearing  at  the  court-martial  had  impressed  him 
greatly. 

"Shall  we  go  now?"  he  said  to  Savary.  "You  are 
satisfied?" 

The  words  were  spoken  with  a  soldier's  deference  to  a 
superior  and  overtly  referred  only  to  the  victim's  identity; 
but  through  them  pierced  the  accusation,  "This  is  your 
handiwork;  you  are  pleased  with  it?" 

Savary  gave  a  swift  side-glance  at  the  speaker;  then  with 
a  gesture  of  haughty  and  overbearing  disdain  he  strode  on  in 
front,  motioning  to  Rapp  and  Lanier  to  attend  him;  and, 
scarcely  noticing  the  subaltern's  salute,  the  three  officers 


"So  Stirbt  Ein  Held!"  429 

re-crossed  the  courtyard  and  disappeared  through  the  door 
by  which  they  had  entered. 

Corporal  Boucherat's  hard  cherry  voice  broke  the  spell 
and  the  stupor. 

"To  work,  lads,  briskly,  briskly!" 

A  gush  of  blood  followed  the  raising  of  the  body.  It  was 
held  for  a  second  or  two  over  the  trench,  then  dropped. 
A  dull  thud,  a  rattle  of  pebbles  and  earth  marked  its  descent. 
One  of  the  soldiers  looked  down  into  the  pit. 

"It's  more  like  a  pit  than  a  grave.  Are  we  to  throw  the 
earth  on  his  face  like  that?" 

"Sacrebleu,  do  you  suppose  he  cares?"  Corporal  Bouche- 
rat  sneered.  "  Perhaps  you  think  he  would  like  your  shako 
over  his  mug?  Throw  it  down  if  you've  a  mind,"  he 
said,  with  a  wink  to  the  subaltern,  seeking  his  approval. 
"Briskly,  lads.  Briskly!" 

The  men  grasped  their  shovels  and  spades  and  began 
hurriedly  to  fill  in  the  earth,  every  now  and  then  trampling 
it  solidly  down. 

They  were  about  to  replace  the  slabs  when  they  dis- 
covered that  a  considerable  heap  of  earth  was  left  over. 
Dropping  their  shovels,  they  clustered  in  various  attitudes 
around  the  edge,  staring  now  at  the  heap  of  earth,  now  at 
the  earth  in  the  grave.  It  could  not  be  more  tightly 
packed,  yet  it  was  only  two  inches  from  the  surface. 

Corporal  Boucherat  tested  it  with  his  foot,  stamping 
on  it  at  several  points. 

"God's  curse!"  he  jerked  out.  "What's  been  dug  out 
of  the  earth  ought  to  be  dug  in  again — n'est-de  pas  ?  Try 
again. " 

"  I  see  it, "  one  of  the  men  muttered  in  an  awed  voice  and 
his  face  went  a  sickly  white. 

"Sacrebleu!"  the  corporal  exclaimed  at  the  same  mo- 
ment, "I  had  not  thought  of  that.  The  right  amount — 
precisely,"  measuring  the  heap  with  his  eye. 


43°  Schonbrunn 

But  the  other  five  faces  retained  their  look  of  stolid 
unintelligence. 

"Le  cadavre;  espe*ce  d 'idiots!  The  dead  body,  fools!" 
the  corporal  ground  out  between  his  teeth.  "Do  you 
comprehend  now?  Clear  off  that  earth.  Anywhere  you 
like.  To  the  Danube  if  necessary,  but  get  it  out  of  here, 
every  atom  of  it.  Do  you  understand?" 

The  miscalculation  was  like  the  oversight  of  the  assassin 
who  removes  every  trace  of  his  bloody  act  except  a  rusty 
button  or  a  scrap  of  paper. 

The  slabs  were  carefully  replaced. 

"Everything  right  now,  sir?"  Boucherat  said  self- 
contentedly  to  the  subaltern.  "It  only  wants  a  drop  of 
rain  or  a  touch  of  frost  and  nothing'll  be  noticeable, 
nothing." 

At  a  sign  from  Riouffe  the  sergeant  turned  to  the  grena- 
diers. 

' '  Left  wheel !     Quick  march ! ' ' 

Once  more  the  tramp  of  military  footsteps  broke  the 
morning  silences.  They  receded  and  the  corporal  and 
firing  party  alone  were  left  in  the  court. 

The  grey-headed  fusilier,  whom  a  weakness  for  cognac 
had  reduced  to  the  ranks  as  often  as  his  courage  gave  him 
promotion,  turned  to  Boucherat. 

"A  short  Sunday's  work,  corporal,  and  a  bad,  I  call  it; 
yes,  ugly  and  bad." 

"Snipe-shootin', "  was  the  laconic  retort. 

"Ye-es,"  the  other  rejoined  in  his  beery,  familiar  tones, 
"I've  seen  a  snipe's  head  drop  on  its  breast  just  like  that 
boy's.  It's  infanticide,  I  call  it.  D'Enghien  was  at  least 
a  grown  man." 

"Bah,  it's  that  you're  thinking  of,  is  it?  Better  think  of 
your  breakfast.  He's  had  his  chunk  right  enough — all 
he'll  ever  want.  Fall  in!" 

"Murder  will  out,  they  say;  murder  will  out." 


"So  Stirbt  Ein  Held!"  431 

"  Not  this  time.  We've  made  too  clean  a  job  of  it.  Fall 
in!" 

The  old  fusilier  slowly  obeyed. 

"Now  for  breakfast,  lads!"  Boucherat  said  jauntily. 
' '  Shoulder  arms .  Quick  mar-r-ch ! ' ' 

The  rattle  of  muskets ;  then  the  swing  of  retreating  steps ; 
and  in  a  second  or  two  total  silence  reigned  over  the  arsenal 
court  and  a  grave.  The  dead  leaves  from  the  plane  trees 
beyond  the  wall  were  already  beginning  to  fall  on  the  two 
skbs. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

EPILOGUE 


HPHE  joy  of  the  Viennese  at  the  Peace  of  Schonbrunn 
J.  ended  with  the  night  of  the  day  on  which  it  was 
signed.  Not  a  single  eye  penetrated  the  arsenal  walls 
to  the  crime  enacted  there  at  dawn ;  but  three  hours  later 
every  citizen  felt  himself  in  the  tyrant's  grip. 

Shortly  after  eight  o'clock  warning  notices  were  posted 
on  church  doors  and  on  the  doors  of  public  buildings  or  on 
the  shutters  of  closed  shops,  and  on  hoardings  in  the  chief 
quarters  of  the  city,  commanding  the  inhabitants  who 
lived  near  the  ramparts  to  keep  indoors.  All  citizens  alike 
were  forbidden  to  resort  to  the  fortifications  for  the  usual 
Sunday  promenade.  At  ten  o'clock  handbills  to  the  same 
effect  were  distributed  from  house  to  house  in  the  Graben, 
St.  Stephen's  Place,  in  the  Mehlmarkt,  and  the  Alleegasse. 

"For  what  possible  reason?"  the  astonished  burghers 
asked  each  other  as  they  gathered  in  groups  about  the 
notice;  and  whilst  they  still  rubbed  their  eyes  they  dis- 
covered the  reason. 

By  the  orders  of  the  French  Emperor  the  bastions  were 
simultaneously  or  one  after  another  to  be  blown  up.  The 
demilunes  and  galleries,  the  earthworks  and  subterranean 
forts — all,  in  a  word,  that  composed  the  city's  ancient 
walls,  were  to  be  destroyed  or  razed  to  the  ground. 

432 


Epilogue  433 

The  consternation  was  mixed  with  incredulity,  anger,  and 
resentment. 

"  It  is  bluff, "  said  one  burgher.  "  There  has  been  a  hitch 
in  the  final  negotiations,"  said  a  second.  "But  why  did  he 
proclaim  the  peace  by  cannon-shot  yesterday?  Is  this 
the  great  Napoleon's  magnanimity?"  said  a  third.  "Is 
it  justice?  Is  it  even  law?" 

"Might"  it  evidently  was;  might,  if  not  right. 

Attracted  by  the  novelty  many  vagabonds  and  loafers 
and  Viennese  men  and  women  of  the  working  classes,  the 
majority  of  mixed  Slav,  Magyar,  Jewish,  or  Greek  blood, 
thronged  to  watch  the  French  engineers  at  work.  They 
waited  for  the  explosion  as  for  a  new  kind  of  firework. 

But  the  well-to-do  citizens  of  German  extraction,  men 
of  the  bourgeois  or  middle-class,  at  once  began  to  hold 
meetings  in  their  private  houses.  It  was  speedily  evident 
that  in  this  matter  Vienna  must  aid  herself;  for  long  before 
the  hardest  rider  could  reach  Totis  and  Francis  II.  the 
work  of  demolition  would  be  well  begun  if  not  completed. 

At  a  semi-official  meeting  near  the  Mehlmarkt  the  idea 
of  an  immediate  deputation  to  Schonbrunn  was  mooted. 
Was  not  Napoleon  noted  for  his  considerateness  to  such 
embassies? 

The  burgomaster  that  Sunday  was  at  Presburg.  Karl 
Morsch,  his  brother-in-law,  however,  a  rich  tradesman, 
was  in  Vienna,  and  to  his  roomy  business  premises  in  the 
Kohlmarkt  the  meeting  at  once  removed.  There  amid 
the  smell  of  grains,  herbs,  and  seeds,  the  hurried  meeting 
rapidly  increased  in  numbers  and  at  last  fully  seventy  per- 
sons were  present,  all  substantial  citizens,  many  of  them 
men  who  held  or  had  held  civic  office. 

To  an  observer  who  had  visited  Haarlem  the  scene  would 

have  recalled  one  of  those  paintings  by  Franz  Hals,  such  as 

"The  Archers  of  St.  George."     The  faces  of  those  seventy 

or  seventy-five  men  were  not   handsome   or  impressive, 

28 


434  Schonbrunn 

but  all  seemed  to  exude  a  vigorous,  healthy  energy;  many 
were  alert,  clean-looking,  capable  men,  representing  a 
nation's  wealth  and  something  of  a  nation's  power. 

"In  the  regrettable  absence  of  the  burgomaster" 
Morsch  was  voted  to  the  chair. 

At  first  he  spoke  very  quietly.  A  deputation,  he  said, 
had  been  proposed,  in  his  own  opinion  it  was  the  only 
course;  and  he  suggested  that  it  should  consist  of  six 
citizens,  two  from  each  of  the  quarters  most  affected  by  this 
"extraordinary  action  of  the  French  Emperor,  an  action 
contrary  to  the  law  of  nations  and  of  humanity."  For 
his  own  part,  he  could  not  persuade  himself  that  Napoleon 
wished  to  impose  upon  this  great  and  ancient  city  so  unpro- 
voked and  so  unforgettable  an  insult. 

Though  a  native  of  Vienna,  Morsch  was,  on  his  mother's 
side,  of  Suabian  origin  and  a  relation  of  that  Hauptmann 
Hermann  who  had  displayed  so  conspicuous  a  valour  at 
Aspern.  Every  man  in  the  room  knew  very  well  the 
Suabian  fury  which  was  burning  under  those  restrained 
words,  and  every  man  by  his  expression  and  by  his  deep 
guttural  shouts  of  "  Hoch !  Hoch !  Well  said ! "  exhibited  his 
sympathy  or  assured  him  of  his  support. 

A  dusky  complexioned  individual  with  puffy  cheeks  and 
a  short  thick  beard  that  crept  up  to  his  eyes,  rose  and  said, 
"  Meine  Herren!  We  all  of  us  value  the  fervent  patriotism 
of  Herr  Morsch,  our  burgomaster's  brother-in-law.  He  has 
shared  the  dangers  of  the  siege  and  of  the  war;  but,"  he 
paused  weightily,  "is  it  certain  that  the  destruction  of  the 
bastions  is  not  an  article  of  the  Treaty?  We  may  have 
purchased  peace  at  that  price " 

There  was  a  chorus  of  confused  astonishment;  men 
turned  their  shoulders  to  look  at  the  speaker,  Hans  Mauern- 
brecher.  ' '  What 's  that  he  says  ? ' ' 

But  a  new  speaker  had  got  on  his  feet.  This  was  a  man 
in  a  skull-cap,  with  a  broad,  smooth,  clean-shaven  face, 


Epilogue  435 

breathing  intellect.  He  was  a  Levantine  Greek,  his  father's 
name  was  Ypsilanti,  but  at  an  early  age  the  son  had  adopted 
the  German  name  of  Schonthal.  For  long  he  had  been  not 
unfriendly  to  Napoleon,  for  he  was  interested  in  the  move- 
ment for  Greek  independence;  but  now  he  was  disillusioned, 
as  the  Poles  were  disillusioned,  by  Napoleon's  reckless 
sacrifice  of  their  aspirations  to  his  own  policy. 

The  purport  of  his  speech  was  that  the  prestige  of  the 
unconquered  Austrian  army,  whether  under  the  Archduke 
or  Liechtenstein,  did  not  admit  of  the  interpretation  put 
upon  Napoleon's  proclamation  by  the  preceding  speaker. 
There  must  be  some  error.  To  suppose  that  Napoleon 
would  demand,  or  Francis  II.  consent  to,  this  humiliation  of 
Vienna,  was,  in  his  judgment,  an  affront  to  both  sovereigns. 
He  therefore  proposed  that  an  authoritative  deputation, 
twelve  men  representing  every  quarter  of  Vienna,  should 
proceed  to  Schonbrunn  and  lay  before  the  French  Emperor 
a  protest  from  the  entire  city. 

Joseph  Collin,  a  brother  of  the  writer  of  the  patriotic  songs, 
sat  watching  the  Levantine's  face,  and  when  the  latter  sat 
down  he  turned  to  his  neighbour  and  whispered,  "  That  man 
does  not  believe  a  word  he  is  saying.  But  what  is  his 
game?  This  poisonous  cosmopolitanism  once  more — ever 
the  bane  of  Austria!" 

Schonthal's  proposal,  however,  won  instantaneous  assent. 

One  querulous,  foggy  voice,  the  voice  of  an  old  man  of 
seventy  with  a  long  beard,  enquired  whether  it  would  not 
be  wiser  to  get  Andre"ossy  to  approach  the  Emperor.  But 
again  the  tranquil,  smooth-faced,  wide-eyed  Greek  rose, 
and  by  a  word  or  two  demonstrated  the  error  in  this  proposi- 
tion. The  deputation,  he  added,  might  take  this  oppor- 
tunity of  expressing  Vienna's  satisfaction  in  the  peace  and 
her  gratitude  for  its  prompt  announcement  yesterday. 

"To  whom  is  the  peace  a  satisfaction?"  Joseph  Collin 
interpellated  without  getting  on  his  feet. 


436  Schonbrunn 

"I  will  tell  you,"  the  Greek  answered  quietly.  "It  is  a 
satisfaction  to  nearly  nine-tenths  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Austria;  for  nearly  every  man  is  wearied  of  war.  Aspern, 
you  say,  is  a  victory,  and  Wagram  a  drawn  battle.  Does 
not  this  treaty  confirm  that  faith?  Farther,  the  peace  is  a 
satisfaction  to  the  Archduke  and  to  his  staff  and  to  his 
generals,  for  the  glory  of  it  is  their  work.  It  is  also  a 
satisfaction  to  the  enemies  of  the  Archduke;  for  to  them  it 
seems  his  disgrace.  It  is  a  satisfaction  to  the  young  soldiers 
who  see  in  it  the  reward  of  their  valour;  and  to  experienced 
soldiers  because  they  know  that  we  cannot  prolong  this  war 
single-handed  and  therefore  wish  to  wait  till  Russia  or 
Prussia  shall  be  with  us." 

Collin  was  about  to  answer,  but  there  was  a  unanimous 
cry  of  "Vote!  Vote!" 

The  election  of  the  twelve  deputies  was  at  once  proceeded 
with. 

Three  relations  of  the  Burgomaster,  of  whom  Bieder- 
kampf  was  the  most  noted,  were  the  first  nominated,  then 
Mauernbrecher,  then  Schonthal  and  Joseph  Collin  for  their 
fluency  of  speech;  then  Kohler,  the  manufacturer  of  boar- 
spears  and  fowling-pieces,  owner  of  a  large  shop  in  the 
Graben.  Four  others  were  added  in  a  breath — Wachsmuth 
an  architect;  Steiner,  the  attorney;  Fuchs,  a  shipbuilder, 
and  Zoll,  a  brewer. 

It  was  agreed  to  set  out  for  Schonbrunn  within  thirty 
minutes. 

"But  the  carriages?  And  how  many  horses,  two  or  four 
or  six?"  was  now  the  cry. 

The  Levantine  rose  again. 

"Six  quadrupeds,  I  entreat  you,  gentlemen — unless  we 
bipeds  are  to  aid  them  in  dragging  our  heavy  vehicles  to 
Schonbrunn." 

There  was  some  laughter.  For  who  was  to  provide  eigh- 
teen horses  at  a  minute's  notice? 


Epilogue  437 

ii 

Napoleon  that  morning  woke  in  one  of  his  happiest 
tempers.  He  whistled  as  he  dressed  or  hummed  in  his  strid- 
ent falsetto  "La  Marche  des  Tart  ares, "  bringing  a  benevo- 
lent smile  to  the  fat  face  of  Rustum,  that  most  faithful  of 
slaves. 

"You  will  be  glad  to  see  Paris  again,  you  rogue?" 

"Yes,  me  ver'  glad,  Sire:  my  leetle  wife  and  two bebes  are 
der." 

But  Napoleon  had  begun  again  "The  March  of  the  Tar- 
tars" and  his  thoughts  were  nearly  as  multitudinous  and 
a  myriad  times  swifter  than  the  horsemen  of  Ginghis  or 
Timour.  His  impatient  mind  was  already  devouring  the 
future,  the  Russian  alliance  and  its  new  phase;  the  Czar's 
probable  resentment  at  the  increase  to  the  Duchy  of  War- 
saw; his  own  designs  against  Constantinople  and  Egypt; 
the  survey  of  the  banks  of  the  Drave;  the  demolition  of  the 
walls  of  Gratz  and  Klagenfurth;  the  erection  of  fortifications 
at  Salzburg  and  at  Passau. 

"This  Peace  is  a  bridle-path,"  he  said  to  himself,  "but  it 
ends  in  a  highway  to  the  Orient." 

An  immense  pride  possessed  him,  and  the  consciousness  of 
an  almost  superhuman  power.  The  incidents  of  the  preced- 
ing day  had  encouraged  his  cynicism  and  scorn  of  men ;  but 
they  had  also  heightened  his  sense  of  his  intellectual  super- 
iority to  others.  He  looked  down  on  men  as  from  a  tower; 
his  contempt  for  his  entourage,  for  his  generals  as  for  his 
ministers,  Berthier,  Oudinot,  Marmont,  Bernadotte,  Andre- 
ossy,  Daru,  Champagny,  Maret,  whose  weaknesses  one  by 
one  he  had  probed,  extended  to  the  whole  human  race,  and 
now  at  this  moment  it  concentrated  itself  in  a  sincere 
loathing  and  impatient  contempt  for  the  corrupt,  frivo- 
lous, vain,  weak,  vacillating  and  pretentious  Austro- 
Viennese. 


438  Schonbrunn 

The  resolution  to  demolish  the  fortifications  was  the 
expression  of  this  contempt. 

His  order  to  Bertrand  was  peremptory.  He  and  his 
engineers  were  to  occupy  the  next  three  days  in  destroying 
every  trace  of  Vienna's  walls.  Galleries  and  subterranean 
works  alike  were  to  be  "annihilated."  Similar  demoli- 
tions were  to  be  carried  out  at  Gratz,  Briinn,  Raab,  and 
Klagenfurth.  "Policy"  was  in  this  work  of  destruction, 
indisputably,  for  this  exhibition  of  force  would  have  a  moral 
effect,  it  would  sharpen  Austria's  sense  of  her  own  weak- 
ness; but  in  the  main  he  was  influenced  by  pride  and  con- 
scious, irresistible  power. 

At  breakfast,  as  his  thoughts  swept  to  Paris  and  Madrid, 
he  rubbed  his  hands  in  amusement. 

"Guiseppe — le  pauvre  Guiseppe!" 

But  in  France  he  had  a  more  piquant  source  of  amuse- 
ment. Amid  the  ramifications  of  his  world-wide  policy  he 
had  come  nearer  the  solution  of  a  private  and  domestic  pro- 
blem. This  was  the  determination  to  be  at  Fontainebleu 
before  Josephine — and  then? 

A  malicious  smile  completed  the  thought. 

For  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  wall  up  the  private  pass- 
age between  her  room  and  his;  so  that  when  she  arrived 
frightened,  panting,  and  all  in  a  fluster  from  Strasburg,  she 
would  have  ready  for  her  the  double  surprise  of  finding  him 
at  Fontainebleu  and  the  passage  between  her  room  and  his 
room  blocked  up. 

He  had  his  speech  ready. 

"Not  I,  but  you  yourself,  by  your  conduct  have  built 
that  wall." 

He  would  thus  in  a  moment  avenge  himself  on  her  for  all 
her  monstrous  infidelities;  intrigue  on  guilty  intrigue  sully- 
ing his  most  glorious  hours  of  triumph,  from  her  abandoned 
profligacy  at  Milan  in  his  first  dazzling  intoxication  of  genius 
thirteen  years  ago,  to  her  inconsiderate  reckless  behaviour 


Epilogue  439 

at   Strasburg  only  two  months  ago — all  would  by  that 
sentence  be  erased,  and  all  made  plain. 

Ill 

About  nine,  on  an  urgent  request,  he  gave  an  audience  to 
Savary. 

But  at  the  sight  of  that  minister,  boding  as  a  raven, 
Napoleon's  gaiety  and  high-soaring  speculation  fell  all  to 
earth.  He  saw  yesterday's  court-martial;  he  saw  the 
execution;  the  dismal  scene  in  the  spectacular  darkness; 
the  firing-party;  the  torches;  the  spades  and  shovels;  the 
ready-made  grave. 

He  frowned  heavily  and  was  about  to  dismiss  Meneval 
but  changing  his  purpose,  banging  that  drawer  in  the  cabi- 
net of  his  mind,  he  turned  from  the  due  de  Rovigo  and 
remarked  to  Meneval 

"  To  the  King  of  Naples,  add — '  'tis  a  fine  sabre  you  have 
sent  me.'  But  say  that  I  cannot  have  him  at  Paris.  The 
climate  is  bad  for  the  Queen  of  Naples,  my  sister. " 

"Sire  .  .  .  your  Majesty,"  Savary  began. 

Napoleon  wheeled  round — "Ah,  monsieur  le  due  de 
Rovigo,  what  o'clock  is  it?" 

"Nine  o'clock,  Sire." 

"  Come  to  me  after  chapel.     I  will  hear  you  then. " 

The  assassin,  like  the  traitor,  is  never  welcome  even  to 
those  for  whose  benefit  he  has  perpetrated  his  murders  or 
his  treason. 

And  Napoleon  turned  to  Marbreuf  and  proceeded  with 
the  sketch  of  a  plan,  extending  to  three  thousand  words, 
for  the  fortification  of  Passau,  four  days  up  the  Danube 
from  Vienna,  but  strategically,  in  Napoleon's  judgment, 
an  integral  portion  of  that  city. 

Amid  these  affairs  the  death  or  life  of  a  German  boy 
seemed  an  unimportant  and  far-ofiE  event, — so  far-off  and 


44°  Schonbrunn 

unimportant  that  at  such  a  moment  and  from  such  a  distance 
Napoleon  could  not  even  see  it ! 

IV 

Shortly  before  noon  the  twelve  deputies  from  Vienna 
reached  Schonbrunn.  They  came  in  three  coaches;  one, 
much  gilt-tasselled  and  befringed,  carried  Morsch,  the  burgo- 
master's brother-in-law,  and  three  other  deputies  of  high 
civic  dignity  or  rank.  This  was  drawn  by  six  horses.  In 
the  second  carriage,  drawn  by  four  horses,  sat  the  Greek, 
Zacharias  Schonthal,  Joseph  Collin,  and  two  others.  The 
third,  also  drawn  by  four  horses,  carried  the  two  cousins 
of  the  burgomaster's  wife,  who  ought  not  to  have  been 
deputies  at  all. 

An  outburst  of  patriotic  enthusiasm  had  marked  their 
departure  from  the  Townhall;  men  and  women  crowded  to 
press  the  hand  of  each  deputy  in  turn;  others  thronged  the 
windows;  handkerchiefs  and  flags  were  waved.  There 
were  cheers  for  the  burgomaster  and  for  Morsch;  cheers  for 
the  Emperor  Francis  and  the  Archduke  Charles. 

"We  might  have  been  starting  for  the  front,"  Schonthal 
said,  when  the  second  carriage  had  jolted  some  half  a  mile 
beyond  the  Kornthnerthor. 

Joseph  Collin,  to  whom  the  remark  was  addressed,  made 
no  answer.  In  twenty  minutes  they  would  be  at  Schon- 
brunn; in  twenty  minutes  they  would  confront  the  "Great 
Napoleon"  and  by  their  eloquence  or  their  adroitness  extort 
from  him  a  concession  which  armies  could  not  extort.  Was 
this  the  season  for  a  jest?  And  twirling  his  moustaches 
arranged  in  the  Magyar  fashion,  he  thought  of  the  great- 
ness of  Austria  and  of  his  own  and  his  brother's  songs  and 
upon  the  manner  by  which  he  could  most  effectively  make 
Napoleon  feel  that  he  too  was  "no  mean  citizen  and  of  no 
mean  city." 

Collin's  was  the  state  of  mind  prevailing  amongst  all  the 


Epilogue  441 

deputies.  That  so  august  a  commission  would  impress 
Napoleon  could  not  be  questioned.  The  problem  now 
agitating  each  burgher-head  was  rather — How  shall  I 
individually  impress  the  "great  man?"  In  what  posture 
shall  I  stand;  by  what  speech  shall  I  centre  on  me  his 
attention?  Their  patriotism,  their  resolution  to  redress 
a  wrong,  had  not  abated;  but  Vienna's  walls,  the  city's 
honour,  had  become  the  concern  of  the  general  body.  It 
was  something  latent,  vague,  and  undefined,  that  would  no 
doubt  make  itself  felt,  and  felt  with  masterfulness,  at  the 
right  moment;  meanwhile  the  individual,  Karl  or  Franz, 
Johann  or  Ferdinand,  was  all  in  all. 

"We  live  in  strange  times,"  observed  the  merchant  with 
the  flowing  beard.  "I  remember  our  present  emperor's 
uncle,  Joseph  II.,  that  was,  starting  for  the  siege  of  Ismail. " 

"I  can  take  you  farther  back  than  that,"  snarled  a  vine- 
gar-faced little  old  fellow,  badly  shaven  and  with  a  mouth 
warped  and  twisted  whether  silent  or  speaking.  "I  re- 
member Marshal  Daun  and  I  remember  Fermor's  march. 
That  settled  Frederick  of  Prussia.  We  should  have  had  a 
Fermor  and  Russia  now.  Massacre!  Massacre!  That's 
how  to  treat  these  French  dogs!" 

The  other  deputies  looked  out  of  the  windows.  How  had 
this  fellow  got  elected?  He  might  mar  all  by  such  a  speech. 

A  row  of  gnarled  and  stunted  oaks,  an  offshoot  of  the 
Wienerwald,  blocked  out  the  sky  westward. 

"There  must  have  been  a  touch  of  frost,"  the  Greek  said 
in  his  suave  yet  unaffected  voice.  "Each  day  the  leaves 
come  down  faster. " 

"Like  the  generations  of  men,"  the  little  old  fellow  inter- 
jected; and  to  Joseph  Collin's  astonishment  he  began  to 
quote  in  Greek  the  great  passage  from  the  Iliad.  Literary 
man  as  he  was,  this  was  more  than  Collin  himself  could 
have  accomplished.  Was  this  rough  dog  a  man  of  culture 
then? 


442  Schonbrunn 

"Was  Daun  as  good  a  soldier  as  the  Archduke?"  the 
Greek  enquired,  turning  with  great  politeness  to  the  little 
man. 

"He  was  not  a  patch  upon  the  Archduke,"  was  the 
instant  retort;  "but  he  got  good  fighting  out  of  his  men;  he 
made  them  feel  they  were  Austrians,  fighting  for  a  great 
and  sacred  cause  and  for  a  great  and  good  woman." 

He  took  off  his  hat,  as  though  the  phantom  of  the  dead 
empress  had  ridden  past  in  all  her  strength  and  noble  woman- 
hood. "Ach,  she  was  a  fine  woman,  worth  fighting  for, 
worth  dying  for.  You  do  not  meet  such  women  nowadays. " 

"I  have  seen  Daun's  prayer-book,"  Collin  began,  his 
voice  sounding  literary  and  very  ordinary  beside  the  Greek's 
distinction  and  the  little  old  man's  fiery  emphasis.  "He 
selected  the  verses  himself,  and  made  every  soldier  in  his 
armies  carry  one,  did  he  not?" 

But  Schonbrunn  was  in  sight;  the  rose-granite  of  the 
obelisks,  the  noonday  sun  on  the  windows. 

The  front  carriage  was  in  parley  with  the  French  sentinels. 


In  the  spacious  "hall  of  audience"  on  the  ground  floor  of 
the  right  wing  the  deputies  waited,  embarrassed,  silent, 
standing  solitary  and  apart  or  in  knots  of  three  or  four. 

The  politeness  or  veiled  insolence  of  the  French  officers 
had  made  them  acutely  aware  of  their  position.  The 
vanity  or  ebullient  patriotism,  the  "victory  of  Aspern- 
Essling"  attitude,  as  the  Viennese  wits  had  already  begun 
satirically  to  name  Austrian  Chauvinism,  had  disappeared 
or  dwindled  considerably.  No  longer  did  each  man  ask — 
How  shall  I  impress  Napoleon?  No  longer  did  he  ponder 
the  posture  he  would  assume ;  or,  if  he  pondered  that  ques- 
tion at  all,  it  was  to  answer  it  by  arranging  himself  into  some 
resemblance  to  the  several  attitudes  consecrated  to  the 


Epilogue  443 

world-conqueror — the  arms  folded  across  the  chest,  or  the 
hands  locked  behind  the  back  and  the  head  thrown  forward 
as  though  in  weighty  meditation. 

The  scene  was  replete  with  comedy;  it  was  replete  with 
pathos. 

And  now  as  they  stood  in  this  splendid  room  amid  those 
memorials  of  luxury  and  grandeur,  those  paintings,  orna- 
ments, hangings, — in  this  vast  silence  broken  only  by  the 
measured  footsteps  of  the  French  sentries,  each  man's 
birth,  his  habits,  his  social  environment,  temper  of  mind, 
his  character  in  a  word,  his  state  of  health,  the  manner 
in  which  he  had  passed  the  preceding  night, — all  became 
manifest. 

"Are  we,"  the  Moravian  began  with  his  fatuous  import- 
ance, "are  we,  the  citizens  of  Vienna,  to  address  the  French 
Emperor  as  'Our  gracious  Majesty'  when  he  is  not  'our' 
Majesty — neither  our  king  nor  our  emperor?  And  ought 
not  we  to  sit  down?  They  haven't  brought  us  chairs." 

Indeed,  there  was  only  one  chair  visible  and  that  at  the 
opposite  end  of  the  room  from  that  in  which  the  deputies 
stood  huddled.  That  solitary  chair  was  placed  on  a  crimson 
carpet  and  its  tall  back  in  crimson  velvet  was  studded 
and  fretted  with  gold. 

"It  is  always  open  to  you  to  ask  for  a  chair,"  the  Greek 
said  pleasantly,  "or  to  sit  on  the  floor." 

Morsch,  the  burgomaster's  brother-in-law,  intervened 
categorically. 

"You  are  not  to  open  your  mouth,  Hans;  no,  not  the 
width  of  a  finger-nail,  unless  to  express  your  astonishment ; 
and  you  are  to  stand  as  firm  as  your  weak  hams  will  let 
you;  and  see  that  you  don't  turn  your  back  to  the  Emperor 
when  once  he  enters.  French  or  German,  an  emperor  is  an 
emperor  all  the  world  over.  As  for  the  address,  what  is 
to  be  spoken,  the  manner  of  the  speech  and  by  whom 
has  all  been  settled.  I  am  to  speak  of  the  walls  and  forti- 


444  Schonbrunn 

fications;  Collin  here  of  the  restoration  of  guns  and  trophies; 
Biederkampf  of  the  danger  of  the  simultaneous  blowing-up 
of  the  bastions;  Schonthal,  if  he  will  be  so  kind,  of  the 
general  position — the  glory  of  temperance  and  mildness  in 
conquerors,  the  past  of  Vienna,  and  of  what  is  due  from  a 
conqueror  to  so  ancient  a  city.  Not  another  man  is  to  say  a 
word,  unless  of  course  Bonaparte"  (speaking  the  name 
very  low  after  the  style  usual  amongst  the  Viennese  nobility) 
"address  him  personally.  Even  in  that  case  it  will  be  wise 
to  answer  as  thus — That  I  myself,  Herr  Morsch,  or  Dr. 
Schonthal,  or  Herr  Collin,  'can  answer  Your  Majesty's  ques- 
tion better  than  I  can.'" 

"Well,  it  is  as  God  wills,"  the  Moravian  answered,  "but 
if  he  asks  my  name,  as  my  wife's  father  told  me  he  did  on  a 
former  occasion  when  the  keys  of  our  city  were  the  dispute, 
or  my  age,  or  how  many  children  I  have,  shall  I  not  answer 
for  myself?  Shall  I  say  that  Herr  Collin  or  yourself  know 
such  things  better  than  I  do?" 

"Well,  even  in  that  case  it  would  be  wiser  and  safer  to 
refer  the  matter  to  me,"  Morsch  answered.  "Is  it  under- 
stood?" 

"It  is  as  God — "  he  began,  but  trembling  he  inter- 
rupted himself — "Mother  of  Christ,  yonder  he  comes!" 

Instinctively  the  twelve  men  drew  closer  together,  exactly 
as  men  do  when  confronted  by  some  unexpected  danger. 
There  they  stood,  their  twelve  heads  rising  one  above  the 
other,  as  if  thus  jostled  they  could  better  see  or  better 
understand  the  portent. 

Napoleon,  without  vouchsafing  them  so  much  as  a  glance, 
walked  straight  to  the  chair  of  state,  sat  down,  rose  again, 
and  with  a  step  which  to  Collin  at  least  and  to  Schonthal 
suggested  a  tiger's  stealthy  powerful  glide,  began  to  walk  to 
and  fro  in  front  of  it.  Something  had  evidently  disturbed 
him  extremely ;  his  step  was  irregular  and  violent ;  his  brow 
was  like  a  thunder-cloud,  yet  it  did  not  seem  anger.  "  Some 


Epilogue  445 

painful  interview  which  their  arrival  had  interrupted?" 
thought  the  Greek,  studying  that  singular  being  whom  he 
could  never  observe  enough,  in  whom  he  never  saw  twice 
the  same  man.  "Or  some  intelligence  from  Paris  or 
Madrid?" 

Visibly  before  his  eyes,  Napoleon's  brow  became  clearer. 
Its  commanding  and  desolate  power  returned.  Now  he 
seemed  to  be  aware  of  their  presence,  and  stopping  in  his 
rapid  walk,  exactly,  Collin  thought,  like  some  forest  king 
might  stop,  he  looked  at  them,  and  almost  instantly  he 
began  to  speak,  his  voice  sounding  curiously  shrill,  raucous 
and  ineffective  in  this  huge  empty  room;  speaking  in  a 
French  which  was  not  that  of  Vienna,  and  could  hardly 
be  that  of  Paris. 

It  seemed,  indeed,  extraordinary  to  Schonthal  that  this 
man  should  speak  at  all,  unless  with  war-drums,  in  the 
silver  blare  of  trumpets,  or  in  the  thunder  of  artillery  and 
charging  horsemen. 

"You  are  come  to  demand  the  preservation  of  your 
walls  and  of  your  bastions?"  the  Emperor  began.  "You 
wish  me  to  restore  your  cannon  and  your  trophies  of  vic- 
tory ?  Honour  can  be  purchased  only  on  the  battlefield.  Is 
it  perhaps  for  sale  in  the  markets  of  Vienna?  Of  what  value 
are  the  memorials  of  victory  to  a  thrice-vanquished  nation  ? 
And  those  obsolete  fortifications — why  do  you  desire  to 
retain  them?  Defend  your  city  they  cannot.  Of  this 
you  twice  have  had  proof." 

There  was  a  kind  of  scoffing  reasonableness  in  his  voice 
and  bearing;  and  when  he  had  spoken  the  last  words  he 
glanced  from  Morsch,  prominently  in  the  middle  of  the 
group,  to  Collin  on  his  right,  to  Biederkampf  and  to  the 
Brunn  wheat-merchant,  as  though  in  search  of  a  human 
face  upon  which  his  eyes  might  rest  and  feel  the  presence 
of  an  intellect  or  a  will. 

Napoleon's  next   words  summed  up  with  astonishing 


446  Schonbrunn 

definiteness  the  result  of  his  survey;  for  his  glance  had 
seemed  to  rest  upon  nothing. 

"One  cannot  make  concessions  to  the  abject  without 
derogating  from  the  reverence  we  owe  to  the  brave. " 

Valour,  these  Viennese  merchants  reflected,  was  then 
to  this  man  the  Godhead.  Valour  in  battle  the  last  and 
highest  test  of  merit  and  man's  life?  And  theirs  was  gold. 
Was  it  surprising  that  though  they  had  appeared  men  of 
importance  in  the  Townhall  that  morning,  merchant-princes 
even,  here  they  appeared  common  as  dirt,  mere  sutlers  or 
camp-followers?  His  ways  of  life  were  not  theirs;  nor  his 
thoughts  their  thoughts. 

Napoleon,  as  though  fatigued  by  their  mere  presence, 
seemed  about  to  quit  the  room  and  end  the  audience. 
This  gave  Morsch  resolution.  The  speech  which  he  had 
prepared  he  could  not  deliver;  but  he  jerked  out,  not  with- 
out effect,  the  words: 

"Of  our  walls  we  all  are  proud.  They  are  the  city's 
most  ancient  monument.  Venerable  are  they  to  every 
Viennese  as  our  cathedral  itself  is  venerable.  Your  Maj- 
esty cannot " 

But  here  he  stopped. 

The  peppery  little  old  man,  who  had  no  right  to  speak, 
reassumed  his  terrier-like  aggressiveness;  and  seeking  by 
ornate  diction  to  match  Napoleon's  style,  he  robbed  his 
words  of  their  effectiveness. 

"The  trophies  are  trophies  we  captured  ourselves  on  the 
stricken  field.  And  we  forged  the  cannon  from  the  metal 
of  guns  abandoned  by  the  Ottoman  yonder  at  Zenta  and 
here  before  our  very  walls.  Every  Viennese  values  them 
as  though  he  had  shed  his  own  blood  in  winning  them." 

But  a  new  order  of  ideas  had  arisen  in  Napoleon's  mind 
and  exactly  as  though  no  one  had  spoken  he  began, — 
"The  Sicilians  chained  the  Athenians  in  their  mines.  I 
have  in  France  a  hundred-thousand  English  and  German, 


Epilogue  447 

two  hundred-thousand  Spanish  and  Portuguese  prisoners 
toiling  in  my  galleys,  draining  my  marshes,  digging  my 
canals.  Why  to  that  multitude  have  I  not  added  two  hun- 
dred-thousand Viennese?  Your  lives  are  forfeit;  you  hold 
them  by  my  sufferance.  Every  inch  of  ground  on  which 
your  city  stands,  every  stone  in  its  churches,  palaces,  public 
buildings,  and  private  houses  is  mine."  Then  looking  at 
each  man  in  the  room  yet  seeming  to  see  none,  he  said 
brusquely — "You  speak  of  your  ancient  walls  and  of  your 
guns  captured  from  the  Turks.  Who  defended  those  walls 
and  captured  the  guns?  Not  your  Emperor,  not  your 
Habsburgs.  It  was  a  Polish  king  and  the  valour  of  a 
Polish  army.  And  I,  I  like  a  second  Sobieski  restore  to  you 
your  city;  but  not  the  guns.  These  I  will  give  to  my  allies, 
the  Poles,  to  whom  they  rightfully  belong;  and  as  for  your 
walls,  I  raze  them  to  the  ground  the  better  to  guard  you 
against  the  temptations  of  your  own  vanity  or  your  own 
folly.  When  you  look  upon  their  ruins,  you  may  learn 
to  reflect.  Their  scarred  and  naked  foundations  may  be  a 
reminder  to  you  of  God's  vengeance  and  your  own  madness 
in  twice  waging  unprovoked  and  treacherous  war  upon 
Napoleon!" 

He  pronounced  these  words  in  tones  that  even  in  their 
menace  were  threaded  by  melancholy  cadences.  But  it 
was  a  melancholy  obviously  aloof  from  the  present  audi- 
ence, arising  from  some  inward  obsession,  lasting  or  ephe- 
meral. 

"Sire,  is  this  civilized  warfare?"  the  Greek  interposed; 
for  Morsch  seemed  palsied;  Collin  embarrassed;  whilst 
Biederkampf  stood  shifting  from  one  foot  to  the  other. 

"Ha?"  Napoleon  exclaimed.  "You  are  a  connoisseur 
in  civilized  warfare,  monsieur,  you?  What  is  civilization? 
I  will  tell  you.  That  State  is  the  most  civilized  in  which  a 
heroic  life  is  most  within  the  reach  of  every  citizen ;  and  that 
State  again  is  the  most  civilized  in  which  human  life  has 


448  Schonbrunn 

most  value  set  on  it.  It  is  by  these  attributes  that  France 
is  distinguished  from  Athens;  Rome  from  Byzantium.  But 
Austria?  You  have  in  Austria  neither  law  nor  justice; 
your  fortresses  are  full  of  dungeons  and  in  your  dungeons 
your  noblest  citizens  rot ;  you  have  torture ;  you  still  retain 
the  rack.  But  what  is  your  name?"  he  said  suddenly. 

The  Levantine's  face  had  separated  itself  from  the  crowd. 
Its  pallor,  its  impassivity,  its  evidence  of  breed,  recalled 
to  him  Talleyrand's;  inferior  indisputably,  but  more  honest. 

"Schonthal,  your  Majesty." 

"  Schonthal?    You  have  not  the  look  of  a  German. " 

"My  father  was  a  Greek;  I  adopted  my  mother's  name. " 

But  Napoleon  did  not  hear  the  words. 

"It  is  you  yourselves  who  have  brought  this  on  your- 
selves. The  citizens  who  submit  to  a  government  are  the 
accomplices  of  that  government.  Why  did  your  Emperor 
make  war  as  soon  as  he  saw  me  set  out  for  Spain?  I  could 
have  dethroned  him.  Instead  I  restore  him  to  you.  Is  any 
price  too  high  for  this  gift?  Value  it.  He  is  an  amiable, 
kind-hearted  if  weak  and  erring  old  man.  And  as  for  your 
guns — well,  there  is  a  way  to  recover  them,  there  is  a  way 
to  repossess  these  trophies  of  your  armed  valour." 

A  singular  evil  mocking  light  scintillated  in  his  eyes. 

"What  way,  Sire?" 

It  was  Morsch  who  spoke  the  words,  in  his  quietest, 
most  earnest  manner. 

"Come  to  Paris,  and  wrench  them  away  by  force." 

Nothing  could  exaggerate  the  rapidity  of  the  utterance, 
the  variety  of  expressions  which  succeeded  each  other  on 
Napoleon's  countenance — impatience,  contempt,  menace, 
infinite  pride,  mockery,  yet  withal  a  kind  of  superhuman 
heroic  might. 

All  the  Suabian  in  Morsch  flamed  up. 

"Your  Majesty  may  yet  compel  us  to  take  that  way, "  he 
said  with  energy,  and  stood  trembling;  for  he  felt  that  by 


Epilogue  449 

those  words  he  had  ruined  a  cause  which  he  had  deeply  at 
heart. 

Napoleon,  who  from  the  first  had  seen  in  him  a  German 
of  the  Germans — one  of  those  "ideologues"  who  made  on 
him  the  same  uncomfortable  impression  always — turned 
swiftly  and  seemed  about  to  annihilate  him  for  his  boldness. 

But  annoyed  that  by  his  own  petulance  he  had  made 
such  a  retort  possible — "A  la  bonne  heure,  monsieur!"  he 
exclaimed.  "It  will  give  me  a  pleasure  that  fate  till  now 
had  much  denied  me — the  pleasure  of  a  perfect  admiration ! " 

He  made  a  signal  of  dismissal. 

And  stiffly  or  awkwardly,  keeping  their  faces  towards 
him,  the  twelve  deputies  quitted  the  audience  hall. 

Exactly  four  and  a.  half  years  later  the  Austrian  Schwart- 
zenberg  and  his  white-coats  were  within  the  walls  of  Paris, 
— and  Morsch's  sullen  threat,  torn  from  him  in  a  moment 
of  exasperated  humiliation,  was  fulfilled  to  the  letter. 

VI 

That  same  afternoon  Napoleon  set  out  for  Paris,  leaving 
Schonbrunn  at  five  o'clock,  and  leaving  it  for  ever. 

He  rode  in  the  State  carriage  drawn  by  eight  horses;  in 
front  and  behind  along  the  route  glittered  a  strong  detach- 
ment of  the  cuirassiers  of  the  Guard.  Crossing  the  Wien, 
the  cortege  struck  into  the  high  road  which  leads  past  St. 
Polten  and  Molk  to  Linz;  thence,  with  the  Styrian  Alps 
glittering  on  the  northern  horizon,  to  Scharding  where 
the  road  debouches  down  the  valley  of  the  Inn  to  Passau. 

Napoleon  and  his  escort  were  not  four  miles  beyond 
Vienna  when  a  distant  and  sullen  detonation  made  him  turn 
and  glance  back  towards  the  city. 

Distinctly  through  the  shimmering  haze  he  saw  a  vertical 
column  of  smoke  spring  fo  a  considerable  height  and 
flattening,  slowly  extend  like  a  roof  above  the  north-western 

29 


450  Schonbrunn 

quarter  of  the  suburbs.  Whilst  he  still  gazed,  a  second 
column  sprang  up  and  a  second  detonation  was  borne  to 
him;  and  in  rapid  succession  a  third,  a  fourth,  and  a  fifth 
followed;  and  the  evening  wind,  blowing  together  and  min- 
gling the  tufted  capitals  of  these  pillars,  covered  gradually 
the  whole  city,  its  spires,  domes,  roofs,  gables  with  a 
stupendous  canopy  of  yellowish-grey  and  black  and  sul- 
phurous smoke. 

"He  has  begun  ten  minutes  later  than  I  ordered,"  Napo- 
leon said  to  himself.  "  N'importe ;  he  has  begun. " 

And  after  another  scanning  look,  estimating  the  segment 
of  the  walls  represented  by  the  two  extreme  smoke-columns 
he  sank  back  on  the  cushioned  silk  of  the  carriage,  resuming 
his  somnolent  brooding. 

What  he  had  seen  was  the  work  of  General  Bertrand  and 
his  engineers  destroying  the  fortifications  of  Vienna. 

The  carriage  tore  on.  The  route  now  approached  the 
Danube  and  passed  several  villages.  The  children  came 
out  to  stare  and  for  a  short  distance  to  scamper  behind  the 
escort. 

Still  the  miles  swept  past. 

Napoleon,  from  a  rack  in  front  neatly  packed  with 
some  thirty  small  volumes,  took  out  a  book,  read  a  para- 
graph yawned,  thrust  it  back. 

"Idiot!" 

It  was  Marmontel. 

How  few  readable  books  there  are  in  the  world,  he  re- 
flected. But  the  capacity  to  admire  anything  in  art,  poetry, 
music,  or  sculpture,  had  almost  dried  up  in  him.  Life, 
the  beating  hour,  actuality,  was  his;  but  books,  poems, 
histories,  romances,  dramas — how  stilted,  uneventful, 
unobserved  and  desiccated !  And  all  the  writers  and  poets 
of  earth,  Homer,  Voltaire,  Corneille,  even  Ossian,  what  dull 
observers  of  an  indistinct  corner  of  a  planet,  equally  unable 
to  live  themselves  and  to  invent  some  fitting  and  final 


Epilogue  451 

word  upon  the  life  they  only  ponder — upon  human  glory, 
action,  suffering,  strife,  grief,  victory,  unconquered  disaster 
— upon  anything  of  this  infinite,  bewildering,  embarrass- 
ingly varied  and  exhilarating  phantasmagoria  of  triumph 
and  my steriousness !  But  he,  he  had  life ;  he  had  power,  like 
that  of  a  God. 

He  glanced  now  and  then  at  the  landscape,  but,  his  mind 
fixed  on  an  inward  landscape,  he  saw  nothing.  The  shadow 
of  a  tree  crept  along  the  sward;  then,  an  unnatural  time 
afterwards,  the  tree  itself  loomed  up,  darkening  the  carriage 
a  moment,  and,  with  its  thinning  leaves,  was  swept  behind 
into  the  past. 

The  vastnesses  were  again  beckoning  to  him.  A  gi- 
gantic enterprise  had  been  wrought  to  its  event ;  yonder  in 
front  of  him,  another  waited,  unachieved. 

And  leagues  behind  him  the  sun  touched  with  its  glory 
the  smoke-pall  above  Vienna,  and  caught  as  in  a  golden 
net  with  the  long  grass  of  the  Marchfeld,  the  charred  ruins 
of  villages,  the  ashes  of  extinct  camp-fires,  a  solitary  home- 
stead, and  the  graves  of  men. 


THE  END 


UCSB    LI8KAHY 


tmiSS!SL&Sin 

A 600  ei 


